Mild flavoured and most comforting dal delicacy in Andhra cuisine is prepared by cooking lentils with watery yellow cucumber and spices. The bland taste of the cucumber adapts the taste of all the seasonings you add to the dal.
1. Adjust spice levels to suit your taste.
2. Pressure-cooking dal saves time,energy and retains nutrients.
3. While cooking dal in a pressure cooker, do not bring cucumber, tomatoes and tamarind (sour ingredients) in contact with lentils because the dal will not be fully cooked.
4. You can reduce tamarind if the yellow cucumber and tomatoes are very sour.
Usually most of them add either asafoetida or garlic in the tempering. It's believed they don’t pair together. But I love to mostly use both.
5. You can also prepare the dal without tomatoes.
6. Check the cucumber for bitterness before cooking.
7. For readers residing in Germany: You can substitute schmorgurken for yellow cucumber, which is almost close to the taste of Indian yellow cucumber.