🇮🇳 India and 🇵🇰 Pakistan · North India, Mughlai restaurant tradition
Dal shorbaIndian lentil soup
A smooth, thin North Indian lentil soup, usually of moong or toor dal cooked soft and blended, seasoned with cumin, ginger and pepper and finished with lemon and coriander.
Origin and history
Dal shorba is a North Indian soup course in the Mughlai and restaurant tradition. Shorba is the word for a thin soup that came into Indian cooking from Persian, and the dal form is a lighter, meatless descendant of the meat shorbas. The sources for the dish are cookery writers and chefs rather than historical texts, so its date is not documented.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 40 min
- Hands-on
- 20 min
Ingredients
- 150 g3/4 cup split yellow moong dal, washed until the water runs clear
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 cm1 inch fresh ginger, grated
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 litre4 cups water, more to thin
- 1 tsp coarsely crushed black peppercorns
- 1/4 tsp red chilli powder, optional
- 1 tbsp lemon juice, added at the end
- 2 tsp ghee, for the tempering
- 1 tsp cumin seeds, for the tempering
- salt and chopped fresh coriander, to taste, to garnish
Method
-
1. Put the dal, onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric and water in a pot and bring to a boil, skimming off the foam.
-
2. Cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes (3 to 4 whistles in a pressure cooker) until the dal is falling apart.
-
3. Purée with a hand blender until smooth, then pass through a sieve if you want a finer soup.
-
4. Return to the pot, thin with hot water until it pours easily, and add salt, pepper and chilli powder. Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring.
-
5. Heat the ghee in a small pan, add the cumin seeds and take the pan off the heat as soon as they crackle.
-
6. Pour the tempering over the soup, add the lemon juice off the heat, and serve in cups or bowls with coriander on top.
Notes
- The word shorba comes through Persian from the Arabic for soup; in North Indian and Mughlai restaurants shorbas are served as a thin starter, and meat versions came before the vegetarian dal ones.
- What makes it a shorba rather than the everyday dal eaten with rice is the thinness, the smooth or strained texture, and the black pepper, ginger and lemon.
- Toor dal can replace moong but needs longer cooking; add a little bottle gourd or carrot if you like body.
- Serve with toasted bread or croutons as a starter; a spoon of cream is a restaurant touch, not required.
- It keeps 2 days chilled and thickens, so thin it when reheating.
Adapted from Dal Shorba, Archana's Kitchen and Moong Dal ka Shorba, Ruchi's Kitchen.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.