Ingredients —
- Butter (salted/unsalted any would do. If it’s whipped butter, even better)
- Black Lentils
- Red Kidney Beans
- Black Kidney Beans
- Garlic (fresh, has to be fresh)
- Ginger (fresh, gotta be fresh)
- Onion
- Whole spices: Cloves, Cardamom, Cumin Seeds, Cinnamon Stick
- Powdered spices: Turmeric, Red Chilli, Garum Masala
- Heavy whipping cream
- Tomato Paste
- Tomato Ketchup
- Optional: Raw Tomato, Green Chilli
Stage One : Preparing the Grains
- Quantity of grains needs to be (Lentils:Red Beans: Black Beans) = (2:1.5:1). The body of your soup will be lentils, with the beans adding depth.
- Soak the grains in water for about 8 hours, best done overnight.
- Take a piece of cloth (cheese cloth/muslin cloth helps) and add the following:[2 cloves, 1 cardamom, 1 stick cinnamon] then tie it into a pod.
- Take a cooking vessel and add salt and enough water into it. Then add the soaked grains along with the spice-pod. If you’re boiling over a stove, cook for over 90 minutes or until beans and lentil look cooked or are a bit mushy.
- Turn the heat off and mash a bit of the grains so that the starch makes the whole thing a bit dense.
- Your grains are ready, keep them aside. We shall revisit them later.
- DO NOT DRAIN ANYTHING. The whole mixture you have at this moment is absolute gold.
Stage Two: The Tempering
- In a pot (or a cooking vessel of your choice), add 3–4 dollops of butter along with 1 table-spoon of oil. This is so that we don’t burn the butter. Keep the flame medium-low.
- Add the cumin seeds (2 tea-spoons), hear the crackle. Add ginger and garlic at this point. Best if the ginger and garlic are smashed, but you could also finely chop them. Cook them for about 2 minutes.
- Add finely chopped onion and cook till the onions become translucent.
- This is also the point where you can add a chopped tomato and green-chillies if you so desire.
- Add some tomato paste and half a table-spoon of tomato ketchup. The ketchup is going to bring in some sweetness, but not too much. Mix everything together. The flame must remain medium.
- Now add a tea-spoon of turmeric, half-a-tea-spoon of red chilli powder and a tablespoon of Garum Masala (the garum masala is what makes this dish absolutely brilliant)
- Add some water and let the mix cook until the oil/butter separates out. Once that is achieved, your tempering is done.
Stage Three : Bringing it together
- Either add the tempering to the grains pot, or add the grains to the tempering pot. Either way is fine, our intent is to mix everything up.
- The colour of the mixture will turn from dark to brown. This is what we’re looking for. Simmer the whole thing for a good 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add additional water if the mix is too dense, play around with consistency you fancy. Make sure to adjust for salt.
- Taste and adjust for salt. Then add a dollop of cream, just enough to turn the mixture light brown. Reference the image above for reference.
- That’s it. Serve it in a bowl with freshly-finely-chopped coriander leaves for garnishing and a swirl of fresh cream, along with another tiny dollop of butter.
