Picking Your Lentils (and Rinsing Them)
Okay, so we're starting a whole new module — dal — and I want to say up front: this might end up being the most useful lesson in the whole course. Not the flashiest. The most useful.
Dal is the cheapest thing I make and, in my experience, the best thing I make. A bag of lentils is a couple dollars at Macey's. You probably have everything else in your pantry already. I think people skip it because it looks humble sitting there in the bowl, kind of beige, kind of plain. Don't let that fool you.
I still half-don't-trust that it's as good as people tell me it is. I made it the first time thinking it was too plain and almost apologized when I set it on the table. Jason had three bowls and asked why we'd never had this before. I remember standing there like... really? This? But yeah. This.
First, which lentils
You'll see a bunch of options at the store or online, and you don't need all of them. For this class we're using red lentils (masoor dal) because they cook fast, no soaking, and they break down into something creamy without any effort on your part. Very forgiving. If you can only find the whole brown or green lentils, those work too, they'll just take longer and hold their shape more.
Skip the fancy specialty bags if cost is a factor. Plain red lentils from the international aisle or the bulk bin are fine. This isn't a place to spend extra.
Picking through them
Before you rinse, spread your lentils out on a light-colored plate or a cookie sheet and actually look at them for a second. You're checking for two things:
- Small stones or grit. It doesn't happen often with packaged lentils, but it happens, and biting down on a tiny rock in your dal is a genuinely bad moment. Takes thirty seconds to check.
- Any shriveled or discolored ones. Not a big deal, just pick out the obviously weird ones.
I know this sounds like overkill for lentils. It kind of is, for red lentils specifically, since they're pretty clean already. But it's a good habit to build now because you'll use it on rice and other legumes too, and I'd rather you build the habit here where the stakes are low.
Now the rinsing — and this part actually matters
Put your lentils in a fine mesh strainer or a bowl and rinse under cold water. Swish them around with your hand. The water is going to look cloudy and a little foamy at first — that's just surface starch, totally normal, not a sign anything's wrong.
Keep rinsing and changing the water until it runs mostly clear. For red lentils this usually takes me three or four rounds. Here's the thing — I used to skip this or do it halfway, and my dal came out with this slightly gluey, dull texture. Once I started rinsing properly, it was noticeably cleaner tasting and cooked up smoother. Small thing. Made a bigger difference than I expected.
If you're dealing with our hard water here, you might notice the water doesn't run quite as clear as you'd think it should even after a few rinses. Don't chase it forever. Once it's mostly clear, mostly not foamy, you're good. Move on.
No need to soak red lentils overnight like you might with chickpeas or some beans. They cook fast without it. That's actually the whole appeal, honestly — least fussy legume in the pantry.
A quick word on the pot
Once they're rinsed, cover them with water in your pot — about three cups of water to one cup of lentils is my starting point, which, I could be wrong about, every stovetop and altitude is a little different, so watch it rather than trust the ratio blindly. Up here around 4,600 feet, things simmer a little slower than sea-level recipes assume, so give yourself extra time before you panic that they're not softening.
Bring it to a boil, then drop it to a simmer. You'll get a foam rising to the top in the first few minutes — skim that off if you want a cleaner-tasting dal, it's not dangerous to leave it, just a texture and clarity thing.
I'll be honest, this is the compliment I still think about most. Zackary — he's twenty-one, eats like it's a competition, cleans out anything I put in front of him — tried my chicken curry a while back and said it was "better than the place by Costco." I've held onto that for two years now, which is a little embarrassing to admit, but there it is. The point is, none of this is complicated. It's picking through some lentils and rinsing them properly. That's most of the battle already won.
Opinion time, since it fits here: you don't need twenty spices for any of this. We'll get into the actual spice base for dal next lesson, but I want you to know going in — cumin, coriander, turmeric, a chili, garam masala. That's basically it. Ignore anyone trying to sell you an $80 spice cabinet before you've made a single pot.
Before next time: grab a bag of red lentils if you don't already have some, and if you've got a spare five minutes, practice the rinse-until-clear thing once just so your hands know what it looks like.