The most important instruction in this recipe is the last one: add the moringa off the heat. Everything else is dal you already know how to make.
What You Need
- 1 cup toor dal, washed
- 1 medium tomato, roughly chopped
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- Himalayan pink rock salt to taste
- For tempering: mustard seeds, 1 dried red chilli, curry leaves, a pinch of asafoetida, 1 tbsp ghee
- 1 tsp Sendriya Moringa Powder
Method
Pressure cook or boil toor dal with turmeric and tomato until completely soft. Mash lightly. In a small pan, heat ghee, add mustard seeds and wait for them to pop, then add red chilli, curry leaves, and asafoetida. Pour tempering over dal. Add salt. Stir.
Now: take the dal off the heat completely. Wait 2 minutes. Then stir in the moringa powder. The dal should still be hot enough to dissolve the moringa but not boiling.
Nani's note: If you add moringa while the dal is still on the flame, you lose the vitamin C. The iron and protein remain, but vitamin C — which is what helps your body absorb the non-haem iron from the dal — does not survive boiling. Two minutes off heat costs you nothing. It saves the most useful part.
Why This Works
Moringa provides iron, protein, calcium, and vitamins A and C. The vitamin C in moringa directly enhances absorption of the non-haem iron in toor dal. This is how traditional Indian cooking was always more nutritionally complete than it appeared — the combinations were not accidental.
