Muttaikose Usli (Chopped Cabbage with Yellow Split Pea Sauce)

This recipe turned out to be both faster and more complicated than it looks on the page. Faster, because Ayer calls for gently soaking the split peas and chiles in hot water for hours, a process that can be greatly sped up by the use of boiling water; more complicated, because we didn't have a food processor, and while in many cases you can get away with using a blender, that's an approach this recipe strongly resisted.

For the sake of brevity in the body of the recipe itself, I've left that step as it was in the book. We don't have a food processor, and had to make do with an immersion blender; by putting the chana dal in a tall, narrow container and repeatedly pushing the blender down over it -- and adding about a third of a cup of water back in, which made me wish I'd reserved some of the water we'd softened it in -- we were eventually able to reduce it to the paste the recipe called for. (The added water didn't seem to hurt it any.)

If all you have is a stand blender, you're probably doomed.

One enduring mystery is the "yellow split pea sauce" mentioned in the title. While yellow split peas do feature in the recipe, it barely has any sauce at all, and the titular peas are used to make tasty, but solid, inclusions scattered throughout the curry.

Muttaikose Usli

660 Curries

Ingredients

• 1 C yellow split peas (chana dal)
• 4-6 dried red Thai, cayenne, or (for a milder curry) Kashmiri chiles, stems removed
• ½+½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground asafetida
• 2 tbsp corn oil
• 1 tsp black or yellow mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp skinned split black lentils (urad dal)
• 4 C finely chopped cabbage
• ½ tsp cayenne
• ¼ tsp turmeric
• 12-15 fresh curry leaves
• 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Put the chana dal in a medium-sized bowl. Cover with water and rinse by rubbing them through your fingers; drain.
2. Add the chiles and pour boiling water over the contents of the bowl until completely submerged. Cover and set aside for at least 20 minutes.
   (Now is a good time to prepare the cabbage and get the rest of your ingredients ready.)
3. Drain the chana dal and chiles. Place them in a food processor and process to form a slightly gritty paste. Return to the bowl and fold in the asafetida and half the salt.
4. Lightly grease a steamer basket (or line a bamboo steamer with waxed paper, then grease that). Spread the paste evenly into the basket and steam until a knife inserted into the center of the past comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Remove the now solid paste disc and set aside to cool.
5. While the disc is cooling, heat the oil in a pot or deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mustard seeds and cover until the seeds stop popping, ~30 seconds.
6. Add the lentils and stir-fry until they turn golden brown, 15-20 seconds.
7. Add the cabbage and continue to stir-fry to coat the leaves in the oil and soften them slightly, ~2 minutes.
8. Add the remaining salt, along with the cayenne, turmeric, and curry leaves. Stir them in and add 1 cup of water; remove from the heat and set aside.
9. Once the dal cake is cool to the touch, break it into ~pea-sized chunks. Stir them into the cabbage mixture and cook, covered, over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until most of the moisture has been absorbed, ~15 minutes.
10. Stir in the cilantro and serve.