Assignment: Dal Soup

First, get out your oldest, gnarliest, most beaten up and blackened iron pot. Heat that old pan up to atmosphere-reentry temperature.

Take you a big yellow onion. Chop it into choppy bits. Ladle some peanut oil into the big black pot and put those very same onions in it. If they scream, simply ignore them and go about your business of making Dal Soup.

Now walk your buns over to your well-stocked spice cabinet and get out a teaspoon each of ground fenugreek, ground coriander, and mango powder (amchur), and a half teaspoon each of turmeric and crushed black pepper. While you are in there, bring out a couple of black cardamoms too. You should be smelling like Madagascar right about now.

Um...go stir those damned onions before you burn them and have to start over! You should have known better. Grr. Turn the heat down if you need extra time due to age or infirmary.

Time to go play with the food processor. Throw in several cloves of garlic, an inch or two of fresh ginger, 5 or 6 long skinny green finger chilies, and some water. Let her rip. If nothing happens, bend over and plug it in. Make as smooth a paste as you can.

Mosey you over to the stove and stir up them onions again. But this time, when you are done, instead of goofing off, stir in the spices. Keep stirring for a whole minute. Then add the garlic paste and stir like your life depends on it.

Your neighbors should now be smelling this.

Before the garlic burns, add lentils. Not just any lentils, and certainly not those brown ones you found in the rice aisle at Meijer. No, you want to add the good ones: Masoor Dal. They should look tiny, split, and bathed in a brilliant sunset orange color. Put two cups of them into the pot, and stir some more.

Chop a couple tomatoes up. No, seriously, do it now.

Tired of stirring yet? Too bad. Stir some more.

After 30 seconds or so, add some water or chicken broth. Hmm, maybe 4 or 5 cups, you can always adjust it later. Also put in about a teaspoon of sea salt and the tomatoes.

You guessed it, stir.

Now reach down and turn the heat to low. Cover up this beastly pot of south Indian goodness and let it simmer there on the fire for about 20 minutes. Make sure you check every now and then to make sure you didn't short change the poor thing on the water, that would be bad.

While this is all going on, grab that sharp knife and chop some cilantro up into little choppy bits. And when I say some cilantro, I mean like a big handful. If you don't like cilantro, don't just leave it out. Go over to the stove, grab the pot, and throw the whole thing down the sink. Then go get you a hamburger. You can't make this without cilantro.

After your requisite 20 minutes have passed, open the lid, smell the wonderfulness, adjust the liquid and salt if needed, and add the cilantro. Also add the juice of 1 or two lemons. Maybe even three if you like it sour like I do.

Lastly, stir in about 1/4 teaspoon of garam masala if you have some. It will help.

Now scream up the family and serve this to them. They'll love you for it.