How to Make Everyday Yellow Dal and Naan

(utensils clattering)

(guitar music)

My parents never gave me cooking lessons,

but they taught me how to cook.

Since it was always there, you couldn't help

but pick it up.

Even when I am casually cooking, I'm always writing.

I've always had a kitchen notebook, I've always used

it as a way to keep track of what's going on in our lives,

there's carrot cake that says made for the occasion

of grandma's birthday, and this is what I did differently

and this is what she liked about it.

I never cooked Indian food.

When I started out, I never did that, because my parents

were such phenomenal cooks.

It was only when I had kids, I wanted to have those flavors

in our home in a really real way.

I said, I have to learn to make these recipes,

I have to be good at them.

Why did I do it this way?

Why do I use that type of bowl?

The reason is that's what works best.

When I take my mom's recipe and she tells me,

no, that's the wrong pan, I believe her,

because I know that she probably tried it in that pan

and it didn't work, and it's that collected history

of cooking that informs so many of the decisions

that I make in the kitchen.

It's amazing to me that butter can turn into

so many things.

You can make cookies that are crispy, cakes that are moist

and light and fluffy.

At the same time, it has such a significance

when it comes to different cultures.

Indian culture, it turns into this golden elixir

called ghee, it cooks for 25, 35 minutes, as slow

and as low as you can so it has just the barest of bubbles,

and you strain it off.

What you're left with is the pure butter fat,

so it's bringing it to the essence of its flavor.

It makes you feel like you've done some sort of

kitchen magic.

When it comes to things like ghee, I like the time

it takes because that's what it takes to do it right.

Yellow Dal, Mung Dal, was the most frequent dal that I had

growing up.

Dal is not complicated, but it becomes the center

of the meal, it's the heart of the meal.

Sometimes actually the mortar, if you're eating

with your hands, it's what holds together everything

else on your plate.

And there we go, it cooks til it's tender.

这叫做tarka或回火,

and you cook off onions and ghee, and I add most of this

to the dal.

I like to keep a little bit back to stir through at the end.

Naan is an Indian bread.

You usually will use it as a matter of conveyance,

for lack of better term, with curries and dal

and things like that.

If you're making naan in advance or you know you're gonna

have extra, if you put ghee in it, it'll last longer.

I often say I'm happy if someone makes my recipe once

and they never make it again because the next time

they make it their own.

You might like more salt, you might like ghee in your dough.

I like mincing up fresh garlic with some cilantro

or dhania as I like to call it, and then brushing the naan

with that.

In any of my recipes, only half of their life

在page.

Their real life and their important life

is the life that they have in your kitchen,

and only you can do that, because this is my half

of the conversation so I'm waiting to hear from

what you're adding to it.

You need a good balance.