Preparing recipes using seasonal vegetables is a delightful experience. It is good for health as well as it saves you some cost. I try to pick and cook seasonal vegetables throughout the year. Even this year before the mango season wraps up, I thought of trying out some recipes using mango. Luckily my mom got a few kgs of it for preparing mango pickle.

What else then? I just picked one and tried out mango dal from this site with few modifications.

Since our ancestors were from Andhra, our day-to-day recipes closely resembles the Andhra cuisine. We know that this mango dal is also an andhra dish, but we know only by it's name and until now I've never cooked this dish at home. Only when I happened to read about this dal in Radhika's site, I wished to prepare it. Loved the combo of the tangy mango and toor dal which gives an unique taste for this dal.

1) Wash and soak toor dal for 30 minutes.2) Meanwhile, Wash mango and wipe it using a kitchen towel. Peel the skin of the mango and cut it into one and half inch sized cubes. Chop onion and garlic.3) After 30 minutes, take toor dal in a pressure cooker and add 2 and 1/2 to 3 cups of water. Heat it and remove the foam that forms on the surface of the water using the ladle.4) Now, add chopped mango, onion, garlic and green chilli. Add turmeric, salt and cumin seeds. Mix well and cover using a lid. Pressure cook it for 3-4 whistles or till the toor dal becomes soft. Wait till the steam from pressure cooker subsides. Once it subsides, open the lid and mash the dal well. Taste and adjust the salt. Add more water if the dal is thick and bring to boil.

5) In a seasoning pan, heat oil. Add mustard seeds and urad dal when it is hot. Add curry leaves and asafoetida. Turn the flame off and pour this seasoning to the mashed dal.6) Cover the dal till you serve to maintain the flavor.7) Serve with hot steamed rice.

Notes:1) My toor dal normally gets cooked well in 3 whistles after soaking it for 30 minutes and hence I mixed both toor dal and mango together to make the job easier. If not, cook dal and mango separately and add it together to make this dal. Add seasoning after mixing both cooked mango and toor dal.2) Increase or decrease the water consistency based on your preference.
3) Make sure to chop the mangoes into big chunks in case if you are pressure cooking it along with toor dal.