Starvation makes the heart grow fonder
Today was almost a clone of yesterday - jalebi and coffee for a light breakfast and Butter Garlic Masoor Dal for dinner - but somehow wound up tasting way, way better. Either I'm getting better quickly, or skipping lunch lowered my standards by dinnertime.
Learning from last night, I over-watered my lentils compared to what I had done yesterday (3:1 ratio, today I tried 4:1), and the water still boiled off a little too fast, meaning they probably weren't as soft as they should have been. They were actually perfectly good, but I want them to be correct too. I'll have to investigate. Things that went better:
- I was way more on top of dishes as I went so I didn't accumulate a depressing-looking pile of used dishes, which boosted the mood.
- I upped how much garlic I put in it - 7 or 8 cloves for one serving! - which covered a multitude of sins and indeed begat many virtues.
- I put more chili powder as well, partially because I thought it was underwhelming yesterday and partially because I have so much to work through.
- I just spooned the yogurt directly on top of the dal in the bowl when it was done, instead of putting it on the side.
- And perhaps the biggest difference of all, I toasted my flatbread in some butter as the dal was cooking, which was HUGE! There's something about eating really tired and kind of cold flatbread in a poorly lit kitchen that really gets to you, but that feeling is almost totally obliterated by eating hot, slightly crispy, buttery bread. It really dialed the suffering back to a zero.
I attacked this dal after one bite. It was so flavorful. Yesterday's was simply "not too bad for a first try", while today's was good! The chili plus the yogurt was a wonderful contrast, and of course the garlic was doing its job, too. Combined with the wonderful buttery flatbread and a nice glass of milk, it was just wonderful, and took less than an hour from measuring out the lentils to cleaning the last dish (then about another 25 mins or so to write about it).
Lesson of the day: first tries are often underwhelming. Ignore them, mostly, and try again.