Soups

Bengali urad dal with spinach, plantain, and radish is a three-vegetable dal that eats like a full meal. Cubes of plantain and slices of radish simmer with the dal until everything is soft and tangled with spinach. A ground cumin-coriander masala paste gives the pot...

Comforting moong and toovar dal soup pairs two lentils in one pot — quick-cooking moong for creaminess, sturdier toovar for body. Ginger and green chili keep it lively, and a fresh tadka of sizzling spices crowns the bowl. It is the kind of humble, nourishing soup...

Smoky moong dal with eggplant gets its name honestly — the dal is toasted and the eggplant is browned hard, and both tricks build deep, fireside flavor. Cubes of eggplant fry in ghee until burnished, then slip into a gingery yellow dal finished with lemon. Make this...

Creamy golden moong dal soup — Pishima's recipe — is the kind of dish that gets passed down, not written down. Skinless moong dal simmers with turmeric and a piece of cinnamon while a homemade blend of roasted whole spices deepens the pot. It tastes like...

Mooli dal, a simple mung dal soup with radishes, is Bengali everyday eating — soft yellow dal with coins of white radish cooked right into it. A tempering of cumin, dried red chilies, and asafetida wakes the pot up at the end. Nothing fancy, everything right. I was...

Traditional Bengali mulo dal, a radish lentil soup, turns two modest ingredients — yellow moong dal and sliced white radish — into something quietly luxurious. The radish simmers until translucent and sweet, and a cumin-fenugreek-mustard tempering finishes the pot....

Creamy spinach moong dal (palak moong dal) is what healthy eating should taste like — velvety yellow dal thick with wilted spinach, ginger, and a cumin-asafetida tempering. Lemon juice at the end keeps it fresh. One pot, pantry spices, and deeply good with rice or...

The ultimate moong dal soup is a bowl of golden comfort — just split moong dal, turmeric, ginger, and a sizzling cumin chaunk. The dal simmers until it collapses into something creamy without a drop of cream. It is the recipe you reach for when nothing but warm and...

Hearty black-eyed pea and sweet potato soup is the long-simmered pot that makes a house smell like a promise. Dried black-eyed peas cook slowly with onion, celery, carrot, thyme, oregano, cumin, bay, and a smoky chipotle, the sweet potatoes going soft at the edges....

Chilled mango soup with a hint of curry is the dinner-party dessert nobody sees coming. Ripe mango and mango nectar blend with coconut milk, sour cream, lime, and just enough curry powder to make people lean in, then chill until frosty-cold. The hour of chilling is...

Smoky vegetarian pumpkin soup is October in a pot, no smoke machine required. Cubed baking pumpkin simmers with onion, carrot, and caraway in vegetable stock, the smoke coming from a single dried chipotle chili, finished with cold milk for silkiness. Forty-five...

Vegetarian pea soup with doughboys is a taste of Newfoundland in a bowl. Yellow split peas simmer with potato, carrot, celery, and bay until thick and cozy, then fluffy doughboy dumplings steam right on top of the soup. It is a hundred-minute project that feeds you...