Name: Instant Pot Tomato Pappu | Tomato Dal
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1/2 cup Toor Dal; 2 Ripe Tomatoes (I used Roma Tomato variety); 1.5 cups Water (Plus 1/2 cup if required); 1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder; 1/2 tsp Red Chili Powder; 1 tsp Salt; 2 tsps Oil / Ghee; 1 tsp Mustard Seeds; 1 tsp Urad Dal; 2 tsps Cumin Seeds; 1/4 tsp Fenugreek Seeds; 1/4 tsp Hing; 1 Red Chili; Curry leaves

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Today’s dal recipe is the Andhra/Telangana special dal – Tomato Pappu or Tomato Dal made in Instan Pot. The toor dal and tomatoes in this delicious recipe are pressure cooked and then simmered with simple spices and ghee tempering. So yum!

Dals/lentils are one of the staple recipes of India. As I mentioned in my Cholar dal post, each and every state have their signature dal recipe. I have been posting simple dal recipes from the different Indian States and today I am going to share how I prepared this dal in the Instant Pot.

How It All Began

I haven’t traveled much in India, and all the traveling that I did was in and around South India. And I got a chance to visit Anantapur, Puttaparthi, and Tirupathi and that’s where I first tasted the Telugu food. I enjoyed the food especially the podis. When I came to the US after our marriage luckily our neighbor, S was from Andhra. Till I started to work, I spent all my afternoons in her place learning Telugu and Telugu cuisine. :-) (I can understand Telugu now, but I can’t converse fluently) I have posted a couple of her recipes on my blog.

Even though we moved to different cities, we are still in touch, and last month we met them. That brought back all the nostalgic moments, and I got reminded of her recipes. Immediately I tried a couple of her recipes in Instant Pot, and here I am posting them. :-)

How to make Tomato Pappu in Instant Pot | Andhra-Style Tomato Dal

I cannot call this a one-pot dish, as I did the tempering separately. The Quick IP formula is Manual Mode for 15 minutes and Normal Pressure Release and Saute mode for 3 minutes. Instead of Normal Pressure Release, you can go with quick release too. I am always skeptical about my toor dal so I went with NPR. And I can hear you asking, when am I going to share about other modes in IP. I am working on it and I will post them all soon and also a couple of recipe requests. :-)

Ingredients:

Toor Dal – ½ cup
Ripe Tomatoes (I used big Roma tomatoes) – 2
Water – 1.5 cups + ½ cup if required
Turmeric Powder – ¼ tsp
Red Chili Powder – ½ tsp
Salt – 1 tsp
For Tempering:
Oil / Ghee – 2 tsps
Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp
Urad Dal – 1 tsp
Jeera – 2 tsps
Fenugreek Seeds – ¼ tsp
Hing – ¼ tsp
Red Chili – 1
Curry leaves – few

Prep –Work:

Wash the toor dal and set aside.
Wash and chop the tomatoes into small pieces.

Steps:

Set your IP in the manual mode.

Add the washed dal, tomatoes and 1.5 cups of water and cook in manual mode for 15 minutes.
Let the pressure release normally.
Open the IP lid and using a potato masher or ladle, mash the dal and the tomato together.

Now set the IP in the sauté mode.
If the dal is thick, add ½ cup of water and mix.
Add the salt, turmeric powder, and red chili powder and mix well. Let it simmer for 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat a tempering pan or kadai and add ghee or oil.
Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, urad dal, jeera, fenugreek seeds, red chili, and hing and curry leaves. As they start to splutter, add the tempering to the dal and let it simmer for one more minute.

The dal is done. You can let the dal stay in Warm mode or serve hot with rice and pickle or spicy curry. (Coming up next)

Notes:

Pressure cooking in IP for 15 minutes is a comparatively long time. The toor dal brand I have always taken a long time to cook. So I went for 15 minutes. For a half cup, 10 minutes in manual mode is more than enough.
If you prefer spicy dal, add a couple of green chilies while cooking the dal and discard them after pressure cooking. Also, you can add more red chilies during tempering.
Adjust salt and spice as per your preference.

If you liked this recipe, you will love these, tomato/thakkali too:

Thakkali chutney / tomato chutney
Thakkali vegaya thokku / tomato onion relish
Tinai Thakkali biryani / foxtail millet tomato biryani
and Thakkali kuruma / tomato kurma

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