Lentils, Peas and Beans-Pulses
Living all these years away from India I have been asked many times, ‘what do Indians eat for proteins, when majority of us are vegetarian’; to this my answer would be ‘dal’.
Dal very often is translated as ‘lentils’, but actually refers to split version of pulses, which includes lentils, peas and beans. When a pulse is split into half, it is a dal.
Then there is another set of terminlogy. Pulses available in India are of three types: whole pulse (sabut), split pulse with skins (chilka) and split pulse with the skins removed (dhuli).
I know it can be quite confusing, so I will list them down gradually describing individual ones with pictures.
Interestingly, the word dal is also used to name thick spicy stew prepared from these pulses and forms an important part of Indian cuisine, so much so that we can eat it almost every day.
There are many different kinds of pulses and can be used to make wide variety of food in Indian cuisine. In addition to savory stews, many desserts are also commonly made with pulses. When grounded the flour it can be used in different recipes, for example besan (chickpea flour) is used to make pakora, kadhi, snacks, chila. Also, they can be soaked and grounded into paste together with rice to make dosa, idli and uthpam which are traditional South Indian delicacies. The list of dishes that can be cooked with pulses is really long and very diverse!
Here is the list of commonly eaten dals in India, mainly in Northern part of India.