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Indian As Apple Pie Recipes

Dal InstantPot Legumes Rice Urad Dal

Instant Pot: Restaurant Style Dal Makhani, Buttery Black Dal

Name: Instant Pot: Restaurant Style Dal Makhani, Buttery Black Dal
Cook time: 1 h 8 min
Total time: 1 h 8 min
Yield: 8 cups
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 1.5 cups cups sabut urad (whole, dried black dal with skin), picked over and washed; 0.5 cup rajmah (dried red kidney beans), picked over and washed; 1 tablespoon ghee or vegetable oil like mustard seed; 1 pinch hing (asafoetida); 2 teaspoons cumin seeds; 0.5 teaspoon turmeric powder; 1 (1-inch) cinnamon stick; 0 1 cassia leaf or 2 bay leaves; 0.5 teaspoon fenugreek seeds; 0 1 small yellow or red onion, pureed; 1 (1-inch piece) ginger, pureed; 3 cloves garlic, pureed; 0 1-4 Thai or serrano chiles, stems removed and thinly sliced; 0.25 cup unsalted tomato paste; 2 teaspoons garam masala; 2 teaspoons ground cumin; 2 teaspoons ground coriander; 2 teaspoons red chile powder or cayenne pepper; 1.5 teaspoon cardamom seeds, ground; 2.5 tablespoons kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves), lightly hand crushed to release flavor; 1 tablespoon salt; 5 cups water; 0.25 cup cream (dairy, or alternative like cashew)

January 21, 2025 2 Comments

Restaurant Style Dal Makhani, Buttery Black Dal

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.

Instant Pot: Dal Makhani, Buttery Black Dal

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

Ingredients

1 ½ cups sabut urad (whole, dried black dal with skin), picked over and washed
½ cup rajmah (dried red kidney beans), picked over and washed
1 tablespoon ghee or vegetable oil like mustard seed
1 pinch hing (asafoetida)
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
1 (1-inch) cinnamon stick
1 cassia leaf or 2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 small yellow or red onion, pureed
1 (1-inch piece) ginger, pureed
3 cloves garlic, pureed
1-4 Thai or serrano chiles, stems removed and thinly sliced
¼ cup unsalted tomato paste
2 teaspoons garam masala
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons red chile powder or cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cardamom seeds, ground
2 tablespoons kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves), lightly hand crushed to release flavor
1 tablespoon salt
5 cups water
¼ cup cream (dairy, or alternative like cashew)

Instructions

Soak the urad dal and rajmah together in boiled, hot water for at least 1 hour or in room temperature water overnight. Drain and discard the water. Set aside.
Place the inner cooking pot in your Instant Pot. Select the SAUTE setting and adjust to MORE. When the indicator flashes HOT, add the ghee or oil.
Once the oil is hot, add the hing, cumin seeds, turmeric, cinnamon, and bay leaves. Stir and cook for 1 minute until the seeds turn reddish brown. Because the oil pools to the sides, push the spices into the oil along the border of the inner pot so they can cook fully.
Add the fenugreek seeds. Stir and cook for 30 seconds. Be careful not to overcook, as these seeds get bitter quickly.
Carefully add the onion. Stir and cook for 3 minutes. The moisture can cause the oil to splatter.
Add the ginger, garlic, and fresh chiles. Stir and cook for 1 minute.
Press CANCEL. Add the tomato paste, garam masala, ground cumin, coriander, red chile, cardamom, kasoori methi, salt, urad dal/rajmah, and water. Stir.
Lock the lid into place and make sure the pressure release valve is set to the sealing position (upwards). Press the PRESSURE COOK button and then press the PRESSURE LEVEL button until the panel reads HIGH. Adjust the cook time to 40 minutes.
Once the cooking is complete, release the pressure naturally for 10 minutes and then manually release the remaining pressure. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick and bay leaves. All of the other spices are edible. Gently fold in the cream and stir. Serve with basmati rice or Indian bread like roti or naan. When finished, I like my dal to be even creamer, so I program my Instant Pot to sauté and simmer for another 20 minutes or so. Just be careful to stir the bottom so nothing sticks.

Instant Pot Indian — NOW OUT!

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...

Please enjoy making these recipes and let me know how they go by reaching out on social media!
Post your photos and use the hashtag #InstantPotIndian. Let's get the word out together.
Leave us a review on Amazon!

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 .

Ingredients

Instructions

Ingredients

1 ½ cups cups sabut urad (whole, dried black dal with skin), picked over and washed
½ cup rajmah (dried red kidney beans), picked over and washed
1 tablespoon ghee or vegetable oil like mustard seed
1 pinch hing (asafoetida)
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
1 (1-inch) cinnamon stick
1 cassia leaf or 2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 small yellow or red onion, pureed
1 (1-inch piece) ginger, pureed
3 cloves garlic, pureed
1-4 Thai or serrano chiles, stems removed and thinly sliced
¼ cup unsalted tomato paste
2 teaspoons garam masala
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons red chile powder or cayenne pepper
1 ½ teaspoon cardamom seeds, ground
2 ½ tablespoons kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves), lightly hand crushed to release flavor
1 tablespoon salt
5 cups water
¼ cup cream (dairy, or alternative like cashew)

Instructions

Soak the urad dal and rajmah together in boiled, hot water for at least 1 hour or in room temperature water overnight. Drain and discard the water. Set aside.
Place the inner cooking pot in your Instant Pot. Select the SAUTE setting and adjust to MORE. When the indicator flashes HOT, add the ghee or oil.
Once the oil is hot, add the hing, cumin seeds, turmeric, cinnamon, and bay leaves. Stir and cook for 1 minute until the seeds turn reddish brown. Because the oil pools to the sides, push the spices into the oil along the border of the inner pot so they can cook fully.
Add the fenugreek seeds. Stir and cook for 30 seconds. Be careful not to overcook, as these seeds get bitter quickly.
Carefully add the onion. Stir and cook for 3 minutes. The moisture can cause the oil to splatter.
Add the ginger, garlic, and fresh chiles. Stir and cook for 1 minute.
Press CANCEL. Add the tomato paste, garam masala, ground cumin, coriander, red chile, cardamom, kasoori methi, salt, urad dal/rajmah, and water. Stir.
Lock the lid into place and make sure the pressure release valve is set to the sealing position (upwards). Press the PRESSURE COOK button and then press the PRESSURE LEVEL button until the panel reads HIGH. Adjust the cook time to 40 minutes.
Once the cooking is complete, release the pressure naturally for 10 minutes and then manually release the remaining pressure. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick and bay leaves. All of the other spices are edible. Gently fold in the cream and stir. Serve with basmati rice or Indian bread like roti or naan. When finished, I like my dal to be even creamer, so I program my Instant Pot to sauté and simmer for another 20 minutes or so. Just be careful to stir the bottom so nothing sticks.

Notes

This recipe is by Anupy Singla, Indian As Apple Pie, from her cookbook Instant Pot Indian.

If you share or copy this recipe, we’d greatly appreciate it if you let others know where you found it!

2 Responses

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