I have only eaten this slightly sweet and slightly sour dish in Gujarat, and how good it was, too. It isn’t just corn grains that are cooked in the dal but the cob itself, lopped off into reasonably sized rounds. The woody part of the cob flavors the dal in mysterious ways. You just cannot pick up these corn pieces with Western cutlery. Hands are required to eat the corn off the dal-and-spice-flavored cob sections. If you cannot find toor dal (also labeled toovar dal and arhar dal), use any other split peas that you can find easily, such as red lentils or yellow split peas. Just remember that red lentils cook faster than toor dal. This dal is put into individual serving bowls and served with rice or Indian flatbreads. A selection of other vegetables and relishes are also included in vegetarian meals. Non-vegetarians might add fish or chicken.

　　

Ingredients

serves 4¿5

　　1 cup toor dal (or any other split peas), washed and drained

　　1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

　　1 ear of fresh corn, cut crosswise into 1-inch segments (or as many segments as there are diners)

　　1 1/4 teaspoons salt

　　1/4–3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

　　1 tablespoon lemon juice

　　2 teaspoons sugar

　　2 tablespoons olive or canola oil or ghee

　　1/8 teaspoon ground asafetida

　　3 whole cloves

　　1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

　　1/2 teaspoon whole brown mustard seeds

　　2 whole dried hot red chilies

　　

Step 1

Put the dal and 4 cups water in a medium pan. Bring to a boil and remove the froth that rises to the top. Turn heat to low and add the turmeric. Stir, cover partially, and simmer gently for an hour. Add the corn, salt, cayenne, lemon juice, and sugar. Stir. Cover partially again and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

　　

Step 2

Heat the oil in a small frying pan. When it is very hot, put in the asafetida, cloves, cumin, mustard seeds, and chilies. As soon as the mustard seeds pop, pour the contents of the frying pan into the pan with the dal.

　　Excerpted from At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka by Madhur Jaffrey. Copyright © 2010 by Random House. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Buy the full book from Amazon.