DAL : Cook With a View

Thirty-three years ago, on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills, a dinner took place that turned out to be a milestone in film and culinary history.

That evening, a young student from India fixed food for a Hollywood star and her friends. The star was Agnes Moorehead. The student was Ismail Merchant. And the dinner--the first he had cooked for anyone in Los Angeles--was a raging success.

Merchant went on to become a renowned cook. He has also done all right as a film producer. In partnership with director James Ivory, Merchant is responsible for a string of highly acclaimed films including the recent “Remains of the Day,” “Howard’s End” and “Room With a View.” These three films garnered a total of 23 Academy Award nominations, winning six Oscars.

At Moorehead’s home, Merchant showed his first film, a short work called “The Creation of Woman,” which he made in New York in 1960. He also introduced what is possibly his most famous dish: lemon lentils.

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“People have written about it, they talk about it, and friends travel halfway across the world to eat it,” writes Merchant in his latest cookbook: “Ismail Merchant’s Passionate Meals” (Hyperion: $27.50). For Moorehead’s dinner, Merchant served the dal , chicken cooked with tomatoes and ginger, saffron rice and cucumber raita .

In France, on location this spring for “Jefferson in Paris,” Merchant cooked lemon lentils for an appreciative cast. A chameleon-like cook, he adjusts his recipes to his locations. In Paris, the cast also ate yogurt chicken seasoned with green peppercorns; saffron rice, haricots verts and home-grown rhubarb.

In Florence, during the making of “Room With a View,” Merchant served orange lentils with pasta and bread seasoned with olive oil and garlic. The Italian crew members loved it, he said on the phone from his Paris apartment. “They couldn’t believe that dal could be so delicious.”

To say that Merchant is a dal enthusiast is an understatement. “I can’t live without dal ,” he writes in “Passionate Meals.” “I can do without everything else, including meat, fish, vegetables, rice and bread--but I am a dal junkie, and I must have dal .”

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Merchant even worked dal into the recently released “In Custody,” which he directed. The wife of a leading character in that film, set in Bhopal, India, squats in a courtyard, stirring a pot of her husband’s favorite lentils.

“Every household in India has its own version of dal ,” Merchant says. “It is a rich man’s food, a middle class man’s food and a poor man’s food. There are no barriers when it comes to dal .”

Merchant includes more than 20 dal recipes in “Passionate Meals,” which was published in May at the same time as “Ismail Merchant’s Florence” (Harry N. Abrams: $39.95). The latter book combines Merchant’s dining adventures into the story of filming “Room With a View.” Of the 70 recipes, some are straight Italian; some are Italian with a touch of India (eggplant Parmesan with fresh red chiles), and some are Indian with a touch of Italy (egg curry with basil).

An improvisational and nimble cook, Merchant is known for ransacking friends’ refrigerators and, in a matter of moments, turning whatever he finds into an elaborate meal. A few years ago, he came to The Times Test Kitchen and proved he could, indeed, produce a full-scale meal in an astonishingly short time.

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Merchant now has plans to produce food-travel books--like the handsomely illustrated volume on Florence--for each city where he has filmed and cooked. Los Angeles was the location for 1975’s “Wild Party” with Raquel Welch, but it is “quite far down” the list although, Merchant says, it’s “a great place to get ingredients.”

ISMAIL MERCHANT’S LEMON LENTILS (Nimbu Masoor Dal)

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons oil

1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 (2-inch) cinnamon sticks

1 pound masoor dal (orange lentils), picked over and rinsed

1 1/2 teaspoons chopped ginger root

2 1/2 cups chicken stock

Water

1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

Salt

1/2 lemon

1/2 small onion, chopped

1 small clove garlic, chopped

1/2 serrano or jalapeno chile, chopped, with seeds

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Heat 6 tablespoons oil in large, deep saucepan over medium-low heat. Add sliced onion and cook, stirring, until tender. Add cinnamon sticks, dal and ginger. Cook, stirring often, 10 minutes. Add stock, 2 cups water, red pepper and salt to taste. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Squeeze juice from lemon, straining seeds, and add lemon juice and lemon to lentils. Cook 50 minutes, stirring often. Add up to 1 cup more water, if dal dries out too much.

Heat remaining 1/4 cup oil in small pan. Add chopped onion, garlic, chile and bay leaves. Cook, stirring, until onion is browned. Add mixture to lentils and stir. Remove bay leaves. Turn into serving bowl and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve hot. Makes 5 to 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

487 calories; 382 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 25 grams fat; 47 grams carbohydrates; 24 grams protein; 4.23 grams fiber.

SPINACH, TOMATOES AND MOONG DAL (Palak, Tamatar aur Moong Dal)

1 pound spinach

1/2 cup split moong dal (mung beans)

1/2 cup water

3 tomatoes, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

Salt

1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

Dash dark-brown sugar

Rinse spinach, trim off coarse part of stems and place in deep pan. Pick over and rinse dal and place on spinach. Add water. Bring to boil, cover and cook over low heat 30 minutes, or until dal is tender.

Add tomatoes, onion, salt, red pepper and small amount brown sugar. Cook 3 minutes. Mix well, remove from heat and serve at once. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

132 calories; 170 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 1 gram fat; 24 grams carbohydrates; 10 grams protein; 2.75 grams fiber.

ISMAIL’S RED KIDNEY BEANS (Rajma)

3 tablespoons oil

1 medium onion, chopped fine

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

3 medium tomatoes, finely chopped

1 (1 1/2-inch) piece ginger root, peeled and grated

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

Dash dried turmeric

1 hot green chile, split

1 cup dried red kidney beans, soaked overnight

1 tablespoon plain yogurt

1 quart water

Cilantro

Heat oil in pressure cooker. Add onion and fry until golden brown. Add cumin seeds and cook 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, ginger, salt, red pepper, turmeric and green chile. Cook 5 minutes.

Drain kidney beans and add to pan. Add yogurt and cook 5 minutes. Add water and cook under pressure 15 to 20 minutes. Let pressure drop. When down, remove lid and simmer gently 30 to 45 minutes. Garnish with cilantro. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Each of 6 servings contains about:

190 calories; 606 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 8 grams fat; 24 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams protein; 2.62 grams fiber.

Note : If not using pressure cooker, increase cooking time to 1 1/2 hours.

OKRA DAL (Bhindi Dal)

1/2 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, sliced

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 cinnamon sticks, broken up

2 cups masoor dal (orange lentils), picked over and rinsed

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

1/4 teaspoon dried turmeric

5 cups water

1 large tomato, halved

1/2 teaspoon salt

20 okra pods, ends snipped off

Heat oil in deep pot. Add onion and cook with cumin seeds and cinnamon sticks over medium heat until onion begins to brown. Add dal, coriander, red pepper and turmeric and stir. Cook 2 minutes.

Add water. Stir and bring to boil. Add tomato, salt and okra. Cover and cook 20 to 25 minutes. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Each of 6 servings contains about:

405 calories; 209 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 19 grams fat; 43 grams carbohydrates; 19 grams protein; 4.03 grams fiber.