Dal / Dar Ismaili Style / Toor Dal Soup

This is my entry for Jhiva for Toor Dal hosted by Linda of Out of the Garden We call toor; tuvar, this dal is split pigeon peas or bharazi or mbaazi as we called them in East Africa.

Ingredients
1 cup tuvar / toor dal
1/3 cup masoor dal, channa dal and mung dal
4 teaspoons Vegetable Oil
4 Cloves
1 Cinnamon Stick (flat)
2 Cardamoms
8 peppercorns
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 large onions (chopped fine)
3-4 medium tomatoes (blanched, and chopped finely)
6 cloves garlic minced
1 inch ginger grated
4 green chillies chopped finely
2 heaped tspn Coriander/cumin powder
½ teaspn turmeric
1 lemon; juiced
salt to taste
3 cups water

Method

Boil the lentils with 3 cups of water. Set aside.
Heat the oil in a large pan; add cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and peppercorns for a 1 minute or so.
Add the onions, turn down the heat, fry until brown, that should take at least 10 minutes, Keep stir or the onion will be burnt.
Add tomatoes, garlic, ginger and chillies cook until tender the oil floats out; add coriander/cumin powder and turmeric.
Add the boiled lentils and the water, lemon juice and salt.
Bring to boil; add more water if necessary; consistency should be like a thick soup.
In this recipe you can add lamb and potatoes as well, and then it becomes ghosh wari dar.