Shepu Bheji - an Indian dish that uses a lot of dill leaves!

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pepperhead212

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Tonight I made this dish, to use up a bunch of that extra dill I trimmed a couple of nights ago. I have never seen recipes this size that used this much dill! It was really good, and it's only 2 servings, so there's a lot per serving. I saw several recipes, and one had 250 g, the other even more - 4-5 packed cups of leaves! I used the parts I liked from both recipes - one had some onion and tomatoes, the other had some usual tarka recipes, so I made sort of a hybrid. I made a type of multi-grain roti, with some ground up brown basmati and spelt, for some of the flours, plus some jowar and besan. Plus some garlic chives and cilantro, chopped up.

Shepu Bheji

1/2 c moong dal, soaked at least 30 min, then drained
250 g dill leaves, large stems removed, then chopped, rinsed, and drained
2 tb oil
1/2 tsp black mustard seed
1/2 tsp cumin seed
1 tb channa dal
1 tsp urad dal
2-3 cloves garlic, minced with 2-3 Thai chilis
1 sprig curry leaves, stripped from the stem
1/8 tsp asafoetida
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1/4 tsp turmeric
Salt to taste, about 1/2 tsp for me

A. Heat oil in a wok over medium heat, and add the mustard seed, cumin, and channa and urad dals, and swirl and stir until it begins to turn gold. Add garlic, chilies, asafoetida, and curry leaves, and stir about 30 sec. Add onions, mix well, and cook about 3-4 min, until translucent. Add tomatoes and turmeric and cook about 7-8 minutes, or until the oil begins to separate some.

B. Add the drained dal, mix well, and reduce heat to med-low. Cover and cook 2 minutes. Mix in the drained dill, cover, and cook another 3 minutes. Serve with some chapati or roti on the side.
Ingredients for Shepu Bheji, lined up for cooking. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

First ingredients starting to cook for the Shepu Bheji. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Up to adding the garlic for the Shepu Bheji. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finishing off the tomatoes, for the Shepu Bheji. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

First step of cooking the moong dal finished. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Dill added to the Shepu Bheji. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Shepu Bheji finished cooking. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Shepu Bheji, served with a multi-grain roti. by pepperhead212, on Flickr


 
I never made ( or had ) Indian food with dill ( if I did it wasnt noticeable).
With this much dill, I cant imagine it not being noticeable.
Ill definitely give it a try.
Looks like I have everything ( except the dill).
Thanks for the recipe.
 
This recipe looks great. They´re basically using the dill as a vegetable, not a herb.
Just one question: given the timing in your recipe, were all the dhals fully cooked, or do you think the frying first helped?
 
karadekoolaid, I was thinking the same thing about the dill being used as a vegetable, in that huge amount. And as I said, some had it in larger amounts! Next time I might use that amount - I didn't even use half of what I trimmed.

I was apprehensive about the way that moong dal is cooked without adding any water - just the water it is soaked in. But all of the recipes I read did the same thing - soaked it at least 30 min., then drained, and added to the pan, with no water, but all said to rinse and drain the dill, which still had a generous amount of water (not something I was going to spin dry). The onion and tomato had some moisture, which is another reason I wanted to use that, along with the flavor, of course. And the moong dal cooked well, in just the 5 minutes. As for the channa and urad dal used in the tarka ingredients, in the beginning, they added a crunch to it, like they usually do, and I was surprised that the crunch remained at the end, even after simmering with the tomato, then the 5 minutes cooking at the end. Usually, those smaller amounts of the dals in the tarka are added at the very end, for that crunchiness. Definitely a keeper dish, and really not that difficult or time consuming - as usual, with any of these types of dishes, the key is mise en place.

 
Interesting.
I know that, in a lot of South Indian dishes, the dal is used more as a spice than an ingredient. I use white urad dal in a version of sambhar powder.
Great that your dish turned out well; that´s one I´m going to copy for sure,
 
On that same topic, of using the dals as a spice, I actually keep a small jar of the urad dal in that "most used" box of mine, to make it faster to measure out, with all the rest of the spices of a dish. It is the one I would see the most, in those tarka, though I have used the others in a lot of masalas, as well. My favorite sambar masala has a couple tb each of channa and urad dal, toasted, with all of the rest of the spices, and ground up.

 
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