Dhansak

Dhansak is a very famous dish of the Indian cuisine. It is particularly admired by the Parsi community. It is a combination of elements and features of Gujarati and cuisine. It takes a long time to prepare dhansak. Therefore, in most of the Parsi homes, this popular dish is prepared on Sundays. In most of the Parsi recipes, meat is used to prepare this dish. However, in some cases, the dish may be made with the help of only vegetables and pulses.

Dhansak Recipe - Ingredients
The ingredients of dhansak recipe include vegetables, lentils, spices, ginger, cumin seeds, garlic, pumpkin or gourd, and meat. Meat is a very important ingredient of this famous dish. In most of the recipes, mutton is used as the meat item. Very rare use of other forms of meat is made to prepare dhansak in Parsi community. Pineapple chunks are used by some of the nations, apart from India, to prepare the dish. Use of pineapple chunks is made to add sweetness to the recipe. However, in traditional recipes, fruits are not used to prepare this popular food stuff. Only a little flavor of sweetness is added with the help of gourd, pumpkin or squash.

Popular Dhansak Recipes

• Dhansak Masala Recipe : Fenugreek seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and sesame seeds are collected and dry roasted one by one on a hot and dry griddle. All the dry roasted ingredients are added to cinnamon sticks, black peppercorns, dried bay leaf, cloves, nutmeg and mace. All the ingredients are ground together. Mutton is cooked in this prepared garam masala. A delicious dish is prepared with the help of this dhansak recipe. 
• Traditional Parsi Dhansak Daal and Vegetable Recipe : Moong daal, urad daal and toovar daal are mixed together and washed properly. Some water is taken in the pressure cooker and all daals, carrots and broccoli are cooked in it. The mix is stirred well after it gets cooked. Cumin seeds, onions and green chillies are fried until brown in a pan containing hot oil. Thereafter tomatoes and eggplant are added to the pan, and the vegetables are cooked for around ten minutes. Cooked daals, garam masala and salt are added in the pan and allowed to cook for around fifteen minutes. It is garnished with chopped leaves of coriander. This is a very popular vegetable dhansak recipe. Dhansak is completely ready to be served now.