Tarka Dhal

My teaching schedule is really cramping my cooking this semester. A late afternoon course twice a week means needing to have large pots of food cooked up the day before so leftovers can be served up quick for the kids. This is a toned down version of tarka dahl. There are supposed to be dried red chiles in the onion mixture to give the dish some zing, but there is no way the kids will go for any "spiky" dishes. Feel free to punch this up as you see fit.

INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup red lentils, rinsed
- 2 1/4 cup water
- 1" piece of ginger, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1/4 tsp tumeric
- salt to taste
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 large sweet onion, halved and sliced
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tomato, chopped

METHOD
1. Place lentils, water, ginger, garlic, tumeric and salt in a pot. Bring to boil, reduce heat, loosely cover, and simmer until lentil are thoroughly cooked (about 1/2 hour). Add more water, if needed, or uncover if too runny.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan over med-hi heat. Saute onion with mustard seeds until it turns a nice golden brown. Add in tomato and cook for 2 mins.
3. Pour onion mixture over the lentils, garnish with cilantro, and serve.