Devansh likes some accompaniment like dal, curd, or loads of ketchup to soften his parathas or chillas. Curd works well during day time but I avoid giving him curd at night or when he has cough/cold. I wasn’t too keen on giving him lots of readymade ketchup until I came across this Flat Tummies organic ketchup that I have written about earlier.
I reserve giving him ketchup if he’s having parathas or chillas as a snack. But if we’re having them as our dinner, then I make this really simple, no-frills dal for him as an accompaniment. This simple dal recipe for babies, toddlers, kids, hardly requires any preparation, gets cooked fast, and is an easy way to add lentils and thus protein in kiddo’s diet.
This dal recipe is handy when you have made parathas for the rest of the family and don’t want to cook something elaborate separately for your toddler or a younger kid, who may not want to eat the paratha with a pickle or chutney.
You can give this dal to older babies too, just soak the rice, chapati, chilla, or paratha in this dal till it becomes soft enough for them to chew. Hope you all find this super simple and quick dal recipe useful.
Simple Dal Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp toor dal split pigeon peas
- 1/4th tsp powdered cumin seeds jeera powder
- 1/5th tsp turmeric powder haldi
- 1/5th tsp asafoetida hing
- 1 pinch of red chilli powder
- 1 tsp homemade ghee
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Wash the toor dal thoroughly and drain the water from it.
- Heat a small cooker and add ghee.
- Add jeera powder and stir. (For older kids, you can add cumin seeds (whole jeera) instead of the powder.)
- Add hing and haldi, stir, and then add the washed toor dal.
- Sauté for half a minute and then add about one cup water.
- Add salt and chili powder. (For older kids and grownups, you can add more chili powder. For babies, you can omit adding chili powder.)
- Cook on low heat for 7-8 minutes (two whistles) till the dal gets cooked properly. (I use a really small cooker so I prefer cooking on low heat as otherwise dal’s water tends to come out from the whistle if the heat is high.)
- Serve hot with parathas or chillas.
Notes
- You may want to omit putting salt for babies less than one year of age. You can squeeze some lemon in dal before serving.
- You can add mashed vegetables to the dal and serve it like a soup to babies.
