Daal, or dhal, or dal. And more ice cream. [CL]

I actually made some daal yesterday. Yeah, I'm a day late posting. And yes, it gets spelled several ways. THat's what happens when you take a word from a foreign alphabet and spell it in english. Dhal is a typical indian staple food. There are many different ways to prepare it, but it is basically a lentil-based dish with a lot of spices. It is also one of my favorites. I eat it over rice as a quick, simple dish that tastes great and is more filling. My recipe probably isn't the typical way of making it but it is actually my favorite of all the recipes I've tried. Unless we're talking someone's indian or pakistani mom. But I never can get them to give me a recipe so I had to make up my own. You could probably do it almost exactly like the chana masala recipe I got off of smittenkitchen.com but I'll give you my recipe.
And yes, I made more ice cream. Coffee this time. It hasn't frozen yet so we'll have to wait for a picture but I can already tell you it is delicious.
For the daal:
You can use just about any color lentil you like but I go with a cup or 2 of brown lentils.
Boil 'em in a pot of water with some salt. It will take about 20 minutes for them to get soft enough to mash. Keep adding water as they boil to keep plenty of fluid.
While they boil you can cook up the spice mixture.
You need:
1 onion, chopped
bay leaf
2 good pinches cumin seeds
1 good pinch mustard seeds
1 tbsp garam masala
a little less ground cumin
half as much ground turmeric and ground ginger
1 green chile, or red or habanero or jalapeno or ground red pepper or something with some heat
2-3 chopped tomatoes (or a can of diced)

Fry the onion in olive oil on medium heat til translucent. Add the bay leaf and seeds and fry for ~30 seconds.
Add the spices and chile and fry for ~30 seconds.
Add the tomatoes and fry for ~2 minutes.
You can also add a can of kidney beans with the tomatoes to make it a little hardier.
Hopefully, when you add the tomatoes the lentils are soft enough to mash. Mash while the tomatoes cook. You don't have to have all of them completely mashed but you do kind of want it to look like lentils in a gravy of lentils.
Transfer lentils with liquid to your pan of spice mixture and reduce heat.
Stir to mix. Season with s/p to taste. Add water if necessary to maintain consistency. You don't want it too thick.
I serve this over my basmati rice recipe. You can check this recipe out on an earlier post.


Coffee Ice Cream:
I used to have a pretty serious ice cream addiction. I broke it years ago by going cold turkey. I just never bought any and after a while, I never needed any. Now that I've decided to start making ice cream I fear I have reawakened my addiction. Anyhow, here's how I made it this time:
1 pint/473ml Heavy whipping cream
1 pint/473ml Whole milk
185g sugar
50g coarse ground coffee
7 egg yolks
damn, I just realized that I forgot the salt (a good pinch).
see original ice cream post for method