Ingredients

1. Toor dal (arhar dal) – 1/2 cup
2. Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
3. Tomato (big, chopped) – 1
4. Garlic cloves – 2
5. Amaranth leaves (spinach) – 175 gms
6. Green chillies (slit) - 4
7. Water – 2 1/2 cups
8. Oil - 1 tsp
9. Cumin powder – 3/4 tsp
10. Methi powder (fenugreek, optional) – 1/4 tsp

Tadka

11. Oil – 3 tsp
12. Onion (small, sliced) -1
13. Garlic cloves - 3 crushed
14. Mustard seeds -1 tsp
15. Cumin seeds -1 tsp
16. Dry chillies (broken in 2 pieces) - 3
17. Curry leaves - 15

Method

1. Take a pressure cooker, put dal, onion, tomatoes, green chillies, garlic, green leaves, Water 2 cups, turmeric powder, cumin powder, fenugreek powder and oil and close the lid and cook it, till your dal is completely cooked, after few whistles or till dal is soft.
2. Let it rest for few minutes, till the pressure of cooker comes down.
3. Then open the lid and mash it with a spoon nicely (not like a paste, but roughly) all garlic, green chillies, onion, dal, green leaves, should be mixed well.
4. If the dal is thick, then add 1/2 cup water according to your consistency, how much thick or thin you want.
5. Now add salt and mix well.

Tadka

6. Now heat another vessel, for tadka add oil, let it get warm, now add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, when it splutters add onion and fry till soft and light brown, add garlic, dry chillies and curry leaves, stir well, after few seconds when the garlic is light brown, switch it off .
7. Add this to the dal or add dal in this vessel, mix soon, and close the lid quickly, so that tadka's aroma is well blended with the dal.
8. Serve it with plain rice or my favourite raggi ka mudda( millet flour rice), with few drizzles of ghee on it.

Notes

1. The amount of water added in a cooker should not exceed the limit of pressure cooker, otherwise it will come out.
2. When it starts boiling a tsp of oil is added, so that boiling should not come outside the pressure cooker, the froth of dal.
3. Never add salt, in a dal during cooking, otherwise it will take more time to cook, always add salt in the last, after cooking.
4. Can decrease or increase amaranth leaves quantity, according to, taste.
5. In thadka can avoid onions and can use the rest of the ingredients.
6. Usually in every dal, my mother adds jeera - methi powder (cumin and fenugreek seeds powder), if it is not there, can add just cumin powder or can avoid it.
7. Can add any thing in your thadka and in the dal while boiling; sometimes I just add turmeric powder, tomatoes, and green chillies and boil it.
8. With the same ingredients can make methi (fenugreek leaves) dal, spinach dal, mango dal, kacchi mirchi ki dal (green chillies dal).
9. Can increase the dal quantity upto 1cup and cook with same ingredients and same quantity, only the colour changes.