Dalcha with Lamb Chops

Dalcha with lamb chops is South Asian lentils just the way my mum used to make it. Well, almost! Perfect with rice, chapatis or any bread for that matter.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

What is Dalcha?

Dalcha is a lentil based side dish. It can be filled with meat and vegetables or kept vegetarian without any added meat. It is a type of dal.

Is dalcha the same as sambhar? They share similarities, in that both contain lentils and vegetables. However, dalcha is a much thicker affair while the South Indian sambhar is more soupy in texture and appearance.

My recipe here is just like my mum’s mutton dalcha recipe, apart from the meat used. I’m not a fan of mutton, so I always use lamb when making this non vegetarian dalcha.

Funny thing is, I used to hate it when I was younger. I have many, many memories of wrinkling my nose when I’d get a whiff of my mum’s mutton dalcha upon coming home from school. And muttering, “oh, great”. But I’ve obviously grown to love it because these days, it’s a huge favourite.

Dalcha Recipe

It’s a very easy recipe to make, and everything is cooked in a single pot, apart from the final tempering. This dish, like many other South Asian meat-based recipes, would be cooked in a pressure cooker. But I don’t use one, so a regular saucepan on the stove is all we want.

I’ve never felt the need for a pressure cooker nor an instant pot, so have never owned one. Lamb chops don’t need hours to cook, so it’s not really necessary. This is what we’ll be doing to cook our dalcha:

1. Place the lamb chops in a large saucepan with water and cook for 30 minutes.
2. Add the lentils, garlic, ginger, turmeric and all the vegetables and cook for another 30 minutes.
3. Fry the other half of the onions with dried red chillies, spices and curry leaves and pour over the dal.
4. Stir in the tamarind and salt and check seasoning.
5. Serve with some chopped coriander leaves.

Easy, right?

Ingredients

Let’s take a look

The Lentils (Dal)

Traditionally, the lentil of choice would be chana dal or toor dal, and perhaps also split urad dal, either on their own, or a combination of two.

These lentils should be easily found in large supermarkets, and naturally, in South Asian stores. My kids are not big fans of any of the above, much preferring masoor dal (called red split lentils in English), because it virtually breaks down upon prolonged cooking.

So that’s what I always use when cooking any kind of dal at home (apart from mung bean dal, of course). The advantage of using masoor dal is that it also only takes 15 – 20 minutes to cook.

English/other names for the lentils mentioned above.

• chana dal = split gram, split chickpeas, split Bengal gram, they’re picked earlier, and are therefore smaller and sweeter than regular chickpeas.
• toor dal = split pigeon peas
• urad dal = urid dal, black gram
• masoor dal = red lentils (although they’re more orange in colour)

Meat (or No Meat)

When dalcha is made with meat, it is often made with mutton, a traditional meat on the Indian subcontinent. But as mentioned, I’m not a fan, so I tend to use lamb for this, sometimes beef bones, just for the flavour.

The thing about dalcha is that the meat is only a bit player, making up the whole dish, along with the vegetables and lentils. So you don’t actually need a lot of it. Which is why I’m using lamb chops.

You must know by now that my kids are vegetarian, so when I make lamb dalcha, I always make 2 versions. Theirs won’t contain any meat at all but is just as delicious. And if truth be told, half the time, I just make vegetarian dalcha, omitting the meat because it’s easier that way!

So if you fancy making a vegetarian version, just skip the meat and follow the rest of the recipe. It can be done in 45 minutes flat, including all the prep work.

Vegetables (and Fruit)

There are many, many options when it comes to the vegetables you can use in cooking this lentil stew. In the recipe here, I’ve gone with carrots, aubergines (eggplants, brinjals) and the must-have tomatoes. I also love okra in my dal, so you could use that, if you like.

Here are some other examples of dal friendly vegetables:

• green beans
• cauliflower
• bottle gourd
• fresh drumsticks (moringa)
• courgettes (zucchini)
• raw mango

Aromatics

We’ve got the usual onion, garlic, ginger and green chillies in today’s dalcha recipe. In South Asian cooking, as you might know, garlic and ginger is often included in the recipe as garlic ginger paste.

I like to break this down to the amount of garlic and ginger because given that my readers span the four corners of the world, I’m not going to assume that you typically have this at hand.

So I always give you both measurements. At least I try to remember to do so!

Garlic Ginger Paste (or Ginger Garlic Paste!)

This is really just a case of pounding garlic and ginger together. I use homemade and always have a jar of it in the fridge. The ratio differs from cook to cook, but a good guide is to have equal amounts of garlic and ginger.

Either use a food chopper or pestle and mortar to grind or pound until you have a paste.

Herbs, Spices and Flavourings

I’ve always used the Indian curry leaf when cooking dal of any kind, because that’s what my grandma, mum and aunts did. The curry leaf is an essential ingredient in South Indian and Sri Lankan cooking, and by extension, Singaporea and Malaysia. Leave it out if you don’t have access to it.

Besides that, I also like to finish the dal off with some fresh coriander leaves (cilantro).

In terms of spices, I’m only sticking with mustard seeds and cumin seeds for tempering our finished dalcha.

Then we have ground turmeric (turmeric powder), a little chilli powder and some garam masala.

Dals always want some sort of a souring agent. On the Indian subcontinent, this could be kokum or tamarind. Or raw mango. I’m using tamarind and a little tomato paste.

How do you Serve Dalcha?

As you would any dal and South Asian curries. And I absolutely love it with the South Asian style green chilli pickle you see in the image above. You’ll find the recipe here on LinsFood.

It always goes well with plain rice. But this dalcha is especially good with all manner of roti. That can be chapati, whole wheat parata, white parata (roti canai) and even dosas (thosai).

It makes a great accompaniment to biryani and pilau rice (ghee rice) too.

This lamb dalcha will also keep in the fridge for 3 days. Just heat gently on the stove, adding a little water to lighten.

Right then, shall we get cooking?