Matar ki Dal - Split green Peas

Try cooking dried green Peas in Indian style – easier than you would think!

How to prepare Matar ki Dal

The dried peas are quite hard, so they need to be soaked in water for about one hour before you start cooking. So take one-and-a-half liters of water, pour it in a pot and soak the peas in it. After an hour, place the pot on your stove and turn up the heat. Place a lid on the pot and bring the water to a boil. When it boils, stir, turn the heat down on medium heat and place the lid back on, so that the peas can get cooked. Stir from time to time.

In the meantime you can wash and then cut the tomatoes into small pieces. Peel the ginger and cut it in pieces as small as possible, so that you have about one teaspoon of chopped ginger. After approximately 30 minutes you can check whether the peas are soft. Once they are, you can take the pot off the stove.

In a wok or a deep pan, you can now heat up the ghee. When it is hot, add cumin seeds, garam masala, coriander powder, asafetida, turmeric powder and the ginger pieces. Stir to keep all spices from burning and to let them unfold their aroma. Once the ginger is slightly transparent, you can add the tomatoes.

Stir the tomatoes and let them get warm. In this process, they will get softer and you can help making a puree out of them by just pressing with your cooking spoon and mashing them further. Once they are mashed, add the boiled peas and stir.

Now in the end, you just need to add salt according to taste, stir and let the peas get warm. Then you are done! If you like, you can wash some leaves of cilantro and place them on top when serving.

That’s it! Enjoy!