• 150g black beans, presoaked at least 1 hour (or overnight preferred)
• 100g black lentils, washed (you can presoak but these lentils don’t take long to cook)
• 4 medium tomatoes, blended into a puree
• 60g butter
• 1 cup cream(optional if you don’t want a heavy meal)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 1 cm ginger
• 2 red chillies
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1 1/2 tsp garam masala powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 piece of cinnamon stick
• 1 bayleaf
• 3 cardamom pods
• 2 cloves
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• salt

Pressure cook your black beans and black lentils with twice the amount of water. Cook until beans are very soft and mashy.

While your beans are cooking, prepare other ingredients like blending the tomatoes into puree. Blend garlic, ginger, red chillies and onion into a smooth paste (use a food blender) and keep.

Heat oil in a non-stick pot over medium heat. Add cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, bayleaf and when fragrant, add cumin seeds. When they start to crackle, add the ginger-garlic-chilli-onion paste. Fry for a few minutes and add turmeric powder. Mix.

Add the puree tomatoes and cook until the raw smell of the tomatoes is gone.

Add garam masala powder, chilli powder, salt and 1 cup water to the mixture. Cover and let cook for 5 minutes. In the meantime, your beans should be ready. Let cool for a while and blend to a smooth consistency.

Add the mashed/blended beans to the mixture in pot, add water if needed. Add the butter. Cover and let cook on LOW HEAT for at least 1 hour (or 30 minutes). Remember the longer time you cook, the better the flavours will be. Remember to regularly mix the dal makhani as the beans will tend to stick at the bottom of the pan. Also, check for water every now and then.

Add cream, if you want and mix. Cook for another 5-10 minutes. Devour with naan or rotis!

by Pak101.com (few years ago!) / 1490 views