Dhal and Chapati day

So today I was craving for some good ol' dhal and chapati but Indian food is not as easy to get in Ankara as compared to Malaysia. After scouring youtube and asking mom, I set out to try make dhal and chapati for the first time.

As there are several recipes for dhal, I didn't follow a specific recipe and just tried to do it my way.

Dhal Recipe

ingredients A :

-1 cup of red or yellow lentils
-2 cups of water
-1 tsp of turmeric
-1/4 tsp of salt

ingredients B :

-1/2 onion
-2 cloves of garlic
-2 green peppers
-cinnamon
-cumin seeds (but i used cumin powder because i dont have cumin seeds)
-some ginger
-paprika chili powder
-tomato salca (domates salcasi)
some salt
a teaspoon of sugar

I used yellow lentils - sari mercimek in Turkish

After washing the lentils once, put in the water and a teaspoon of turmeric. Let boil and simmer for about one hour.

yea this is the turmeric or kunyit in Malay

While the lentils simmer, we chop our Ingredients B. I used only half of the onion and 1 inch of ginger

But I kinda made a mistake of chopping the gingers finely and when I mixed them with the lentils people can't see the gingers and would bite into them. So you would want to make big slices of the ginger.

After about one hour, the lentils should be soft and fluffy, you may want to add more water to reach the right consistency. I added some more water but couldn't remember the exact measurement. After that I used a hand blender to just give it a quick blend.

In a separate pan, stir fry the ingredients B with some oil and a bit of butter. Indian recipes usually use ghee or clarified butter but I don't know where to find that in Ankara.

Pour in the lentils/Ingredients A into Ingredients B and add a bit more water. Stir occasionally on medium heat. Add in salt as needed. Sprinkle some paprika chili powder. I like my dhal to be a bit thick so I didnt add too much water. Oh yea and at the end I decided to throw in two bay leaves (defne yapragi)