The only note on these recipes is my dad’s “measurements” are super old-school — in that, there aren’t any. What I’ve found works well is to just play around with the spices and taste as you go. The recipe is really easy so you can’t mess them up.

Ingredients
1/4 cup Toor Daal
1/4 cup Moong Daal
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Equal parts mustard seeds, cumin seeds and turmeric
Pinch of Hing (asafetida)
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt to taste
Brown sugar (gud) to taste
3-4 pieces dried kokam fruit (you can get this at the Indian store, or substitute with dried sour plums)
Cilantro for garnish

Method

Cook the daal in the pressure cooker.

Once the daal is done, in a small pan or skillet, stir-fry the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric and hing in the olive oil. Add the spice mixture into the daal and stir until combined.

Add the cayenne, salt, brown sugar and kokam fruit and heat through. Sprinkle cilantro in at the end.