Doobki (Vegetarian)b1

This is my Mother-in-Laws favourite recipe. Ingredients- 1. Onions (This is optional for people who don#39;t eat onions..but the dish may not taste the same) - 1.5 - 2 onions 2. Garlic (This is optional for people who don#39;t eat garlic..but the dish may not taste the same) - 2-4 cloves 3. Ginger - Size of an Indian Rupee coin - (If you like the flavour of ginger...you may put more) 4. Tomatoes - 3-4 The above four ingredients are for the base/gravy. Put the above listed in a blender/food processor and let it come to a nice smooth consistency. Below is a list of spices that I usually use in base/garvy preparation. Again these are optional. You can vary the amount or add your own. 1. Laung/Laving/Cloves - Whole - 4-6 2. Sukhi Lal Mirch/Whole Dried Red Chillies - 1-2 3. Dalchini/Cinnamon - 1 medium sized stick 4. Tej patta/ Bay leave/s - 1-2 5. Salt - According to taste 6. Coriander Powder - 3 tsp 7. Haldi/Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp 8. Red Chilli Powder - According to desired hotness V.Imp - You may add these spices with your onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger and make a fine paste or make the paste first and then add these spcies later. This is completely your choice. Ingredients for doobki- 1. Urad daal 2. Pinch of soda 3. Salt (to taste) V.Imp - Soak Urad daal overnight. Put daal in blender/food processor with some garlic and green chillies. (Note adding garlic and green chillies to urad daal is optional) and achieve a smooth consistency. Add a pinch of soda to urad daal batter and whisk a few times. If you don#39;t have a whisk handy..you may use a big spoon as well. Works fine either ways. Take 3-4 tbs of oil in karahi or deep sauce pan. Add cumin seeds. Once the cumin seeds start to flutter, add the onion,tomato, garlic, ginger base/gravy already prepared. Add salt to taste, haldi/turmeric powder, coriander powder and all other spices now if you have already not added them in the raw gravy. Fry until this is golden brown. Add water. Let the base/gravy come to a boil. Take the urad daal batter and drop small dollops of this batter in the base/gravy. Add as many as you like. These dollops of urad daal batter will float in your gravy...and hence the name of this dish..doobki...Let it come to 2-3 boils until doobki/urad daal dollops are completely cooked. I hope you enjoy this as much as my Mother-in-law and so many other in her family and many more in UP and India enjoy it! Thanks and Regards Nidhi