DAL MAKHANI IS DELICIOUS, COMPLEX, AND NOW SIMPLE WITH THIS RECIPE.
Dal with makhan (butter) is a more decadent version of Indian black dal (urad dal) that has become a standard, go-to dish on Indian restaurant menus, likely because it's at once hearty and comforting. The addition of fenugreek (seed and herb) adds a gourmet quality. After failing a few times, I upped the cook time to 40 minutes. Urad is a very tough legume and it takes a lot of water and time to cook up properly - why the extra cook time will get it to the creamy consistency you want. This recipe will also work perfectly fine in a larger-sized Instant Pot.
Turn to page 56 in my fourth book, Instant Pot Indian (more on this book below), and you'll see these notes. In it, I took a lot of time and patience to give you color-coded ingredient lists for each recipe for 3-quart, 6-quart, and 8-quart sizes of the Instant Pot. It matters. In the smallest size you can fit about 2 cups of legumes, then 4 cups in the next size up, and then 6 in the 8-quart size. In order to get the recipes right, it's critical to get the proportion of legumes right to start with. It took me over a year of intense testing to perfect the balance for each recipe and to create essentially three recipes for each dish. As you scale up or down the ingredient amounts can vary greatly. To me, that's the beauty of my book and my gift to all of you - I made it effortless to scale recipes up and/or down. It's what I wanted from all of my Instant Pot cookbooks - and now you have it for at least Indian recipes.
Desi Corner: Makhan in Hindi means butter. Use ghee or plant-based alternatives. No matter. Both are delicious. Make an effort to find URAD dal. I call it dal and not lentils because it is technically a bean. It's black, and so the right term for it would be 'black bean,' but this would confuse in the West where we think of black beans as Mexican. So, I stick with the term dal. Need a primer on legumes/dal: beans, peas, and lentils? Click here.
Pressure Cooker Size: 3 quart or larger
Warm Up: 18 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Cool Down: 10 minutes natural release + manual release time
Total: 1 hour 8 minutes plus manual release time
Makes: 8 cups
My fourth book, Instant Pot Indian, converts all of my Indian Slow Cooker recipes to the electric pressure cooker, or Instant Pot. This book is different than most Instant Pot books out there because I give you a chart for each recipe that lists ingredients in three separate columns for three sizes of IP (3-quart, 6-quart, and 8-quart). Most Instant Pot books only test for 1 cup of product leaving you guessing if you want to scale up or down.
If you already have the book...
You have always been the Village I can count on the most and for that, I just want to say humbly - thank you!
xoxo Anupy
Curry Prep: Watch this video to see how to grind your onion, ginger, and garlic. In this recipe I prefer to grind the onion separately because it has a higher water content than ginger/garlic. This way, the water cooks off so the onion browns slightly before adding the ginger and garlic.
Indian Ingredient Corner: Kasoori Methi
In the video below, I showcase dried fenugreek. It can be a slight challenge to find, but it's well worth the effort. You can successfully make the above recipe without it, but once you do use it you'll see why we love it so much - especially in Punjabi cooking. It adds a delicious slightly bitter taste profile that plays well with your Urad Dal. It's also incredibly healthy for you. You'll notice that I also use fenugreek seeds. These are more easily found in mainstream markets and lend a similar taste profile. Never substitute seeds for leaves in recipes - they cook very differently. Did you know that fenugreek is a legume? But, here we use it as a spice. For more videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel.
[[ recipeID=recipe-2m65lni3u, title=Instant Pot: Restaurant Style Dal Makhani, Buttery Black Dal ]]
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Servings: 8 cups
Keywords: Dal Makhani, Dals, Vegetarian
This recipe is by Anupy Singla, Indian As Apple Pie, from her cookbook Instant Pot Indian.
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Anupy
February 06, 2024
Thank you SO much! I am so glad you agree. This recipe really does rock and every single spice added does indeed deepen the flavor and add to the complexity. You are getting with it a restaurant-quality dish made without all the unnecessary oil and butter. I am so glad you enjoyed it! I hope you will try more recipes! xoxo Anupy