Dal Makhani

Delhi's slow-simmered whole black gram and red kidney beans in a velvety tomato gravy enriched with butter and cream, finished with dried fenugreek

Origin: Daryaganj & Delhi, India

From the journey of Black Gram.

Dal makhani, buttered dal, is whole black gram with a smaller quantity of red kidney beans, simmered for hours until the skins soften and the grains break down into a dark, thick, velvety mass, then enriched with tomato, butter, and cream. It is the dal of North Indian restaurants and of weddings, and it is cooked long: traditionally left on the dying embers of a tandoor overnight so that it reduced and deepened by morning. Its origin is claimed by two families, and the claim is in court. Moti Mahal, the Delhi restaurant, holds that its founder Kundan Lal Gujral created both dal makhani and butter chicken, in the version the family tells beginning in Peshawar in the 1930s, before he came to Delhi as a refugee at Partition and reopened in Daryaganj in 1947. The Jaggi family, whose restaurant is called Daryaganj, holds that their relative Kundan Lal Jaggi was Gujral's partner in the Delhi restaurant and that the dishes were created there, and it has produced a partnership deed registered in 1949. Moti Mahal took the dispute to the Delhi High Court, where it was first heard in January 2024, and the question has not been settled. What is not in dispute is the place and the time: Daryaganj, in the years after 1947, among Punjabi cooks who had brought the tandoor to Delhi. Behind the restaurant dish lies an older, plainer one. Punjabi households have long cooked whole black gram, maah, slowly with ginger, garlic, and a little ghee, and dal makhani is that home dal made rich.

Ingredients

Dal

  • 200 g whole black urad (sabut urad)
  • 40 g red kidney beans (rajma)
  • 1.5 litres water
  • 1 tsp salt

Gravy

  • 60 g unsalted butter
  • 1 tbsp ghee
  • 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
  • 250 ml tomato passata
  • 1.5 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
  • 0.5 tsp garam masala

To Finish

  • 100 ml double cream
  • 1 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi), crushed
  • 20 g butter, to serve

Method

  1. Rinse the urad and rajma together and soak them in plenty of water overnight.
  2. Drain, cover with the fresh water, add the salt, and simmer gently, partly covered, for about two hours, until the rajma is completely soft and the urad crushes easily between the fingers.
  3. Mash about a third of the grains against the side of the pan with a ladle to thicken the dal.
  4. In a separate pan, melt the butter with the ghee, fry the ginger-garlic paste for one minute, then add the passata and chilli powder and cook for 10 minutes until the fat separates.
  5. Stir the tomato mixture into the dal and simmer over the lowest possible heat for at least another hour, stirring often and adding hot water whenever it thickens too much.
  6. Stir in the garam masala, cream, and kasuri methi, and simmer for five minutes more.
  7. Serve with a knob of butter melting on top, with naan or rice.

Notes

Dal makhani is better the next day, and restaurants routinely make it a day ahead. For a smoky finish in the tandoor manner, set a small steel bowl in the dal, put a live coal in it, drip a little ghee onto the coal, and cover the pot for two minutes. The proportion of rajma is kept small; it supports the black gram rather than competing with it.

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