Baked Crunchy Chana Dal & Mung Dal

Once upon a time, when I was little, fried chana dal was prepared quite often as a snack. Whenever palaharam (snacks with longer shelf life) was made at home, fried chana dal was often on the list. Gradually it disappeared from the list and always wondered why? I liked munching on spiced chana dal as a snack. The dal is soaked in water to make it tender, deep fried in hot oil and seasoned with crushed garlic, chili powder & salt. I liked munching the dal with bites of dried garlic (after few hours, crushed garlic gets dried) chili powder.

When I was looking for deep fried food that can be baked, I remembered this chana dal which I liked a lot as child. I soaked the dal for 4 hours, cooked it little water for 2-3 minutes, drained it and baked for 20 minutes. It turned out crunchy & crispy, almost like deep fried dal. The first time I made it, I was a little disappointed how it turned out but as the dal cooled down, it became crunchy. Since I was a little disappointed, I soaked some mung dal to see how that would turn out. I liked both the spiced dals but preferred chana dal.

Total Time: 30 – 45 minutes (excludes 4 hours of soaking time)
Preparation: 10 – 15 minutes
Baking Time: 20 – 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Chana Dal or Mung Dal
• 1 tbsp. Oil
• 1 – 1 ½ tsp. Chili Powder (adjust to taste)
• ¾ – 1 tsp. Salt (adjust to taste)
• Little Turmeric
• 2-3 Garlic Cloves (adjust to your preference)

Preparation:

• Wash the dal and soak it for at least 4 hours.
• Drain the water and transfer the dal to a sauce pan. Fill the pan with water, about ½ – 1” above the dal. Cook it on high for 3 minutes. You will see foam forming on the top. We don’t want to cook the dal for too long. Turn of the heat, drain it and run the dal under cold water to bring it back to room temperature. This step can be skipped if using mung dal.
• Transfer dal to a paper towels or a kitchen towel and pat dry it. Leave it on the towel to dry, for about 5 minutes until the oven is preheated.
• Preheat the oven to 400F. For mung dal, I preheated to 375 F.
• Line a baking tray or cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
• Transfer chana dal to bowl and mix it well with oil, ½ tsp. salt, ½ tsp. chili powder & turmeric. You can also do this directly on the lined baking sheet.
• Spread seasoned chana dal on the baking sheet and bake it for 10 minutes in a preheated oven.
• Remove from the over, shake the tray properly or with a spoon mix the dal and spread it evenly on the tray. Put it back in the oven and bake for 5 minutes. Pull it out and repeat the above step. Bake for another 5 minutes or until chana dal turns brown. The total bake time is 20 minutes. However, I felt I should have pulled it out of the oven a minute earlier. Do keep an eye on the dal after 18 minutes into baking.
• Crush together garlic, ¼ tsp. salt & 1 tsp. of chili powder. Sprinkle it on the baked dal and mix it well. Add the garlic immediately after removing the dal from the over. I made mung dal less spicy and skipped chili powder when crushing garlic.
• Once the dal is cooled, store in an air tight container.

Recipes this day in 2011: Pound Cake for Sweet Punch
Recipes I posted this month in 2008, in 2009, in 2010 and in 2011.

Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli’s blog

Event Entries: I am sending these falafel to Simona’s My Legume Love Affair, an event started by Susan, to Nalani’s Show Me My Hits: Lentils & Legumes, an event started by Sangeetha and to Pradnya’s Bake Fest, an event started by Vardhini.