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Dal Karhi

A lentil soup cooked with spices, clarified butter, and fried onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and lentils match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 267 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dal Karhi

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lentils

  1. Mix the lentils with ground chillies, turmeric, garlic, and salt.

  2. Roast the mixture for about 10 minutes.

  3. Add enough water to cover the lentils and boil well.

  4. Stir for about 3 minutes once thoroughly boiled.

Finish with onion butter

  1. In a separate pan, warm the clarified butter and fry the sliced onions until golden.

  2. Add the fried onions and butter to the lentils and stir until mixed.

  3. Simmer the lentils over low heat for 15 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Turmeric + lentilstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + lentilstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together633 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turmeric + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Clean-picked lentils
Form the body of the dish, thickening into a soft, creamy texture as they cook.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Sliced onions
Fried until golden, they add sweetness and savoury browned flavour.
Ground chillies
Provide heat and colour to the lentils.
Turmeric
Adds earthy flavour and a golden colour to the lentils.

The step that matters

Boil the lentils thoroughly before stirring. Lentils need to be fully boiled and softened in enough water before finishing; undercooked lentils stay firm and grainy, and the dish will not thicken properly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, garlic, lentils, butter):

  1. Kalefits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, garlic, lentils, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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