Dal bhat
What Nepal eats twice a day: rice (bhat) with lentil soup (dal), vegetable curry (tarkari) and pickle (achar). In the teahouses on the trek it’s refilled without limit.
Ingredients
- 300 g rice
- 200 g lentils (a mix of red and black)
- 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric
- 2 tablespoons of ghee
- 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
- 3 garlic cloves and 1 piece of ginger
- Tarkari: 2 potatoes, 1/2 cauliflower, 1 tomato, onion, turmeric and cumin
- Achar: radish or tomato with chilli and lemon
- Salt
How to make it at home
- Cook the lentils with the turmeric and salt in three times their volume of water until they break down.
- Fry the cumin, garlic and ginger in ghee and add to the dal (this is the jhaneko).
- For the tarkari, fry the onion with the spices and add the potato and cauliflower with the tomato; cook covered until tender.
- Cook the white rice separately.
- Serve on a large plate: rice in the centre, the dal in a bowl and the tarkari and achar around it.
The trick: “Dal bhat power, 24 hour”: so say the Himalayan porters.