Lentil powder to flavor veggie stir fries and rice dishes

I am notorious for making different rice dishes as quick one pot meals. Cook some rice, use some frozen veggies, mix them together with some spices. If you have this kind of powder ready, you can make a one pot meal in a jiffy. I have a distant relative who, when called is always late or they might not even show up. I never cook anything for them when they say they are coming. When they pull up their car on the drive way, I start to cook the rice. Always have frozen veggies in the freezer. I just mix them up and add some kind of spice powder to make an one pot meal.
My mother always used Vangibhath powder to flavor the rice if she is making some rice dish with vegetables. I do that too sometimes. But, that powder has many spices that are aromatic and strong that can interfere with the flavors of some vegetables. When I saw the recipe for this powder in a book, I was intrigued since it had moong dal in it. I have not seen any powder with moong dal in it. It is usually chana dal and urad dal. I tweaked the recipe and here is what I came up with. A very flavorful lentil powder that you can use to make plain stir fries more interesting.

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Ingredients: 
Chana dal / Dehusked, split chickpea - 1 cup
Urad dal / Dehusked, split blackgram - 1 cup
Moong dal / Dehusked, split mung beans - 1 cup
Coriander Seeds - 1/2 cup
Red chillies (whole) - 2 cups
Asafoetida - Pea size or about 1/2 tsp if using powder (optional - See Notes)
Turmeric - 2 tsp

Method:
In a skillet, dry roast each dal/lentil separately until golden. Set aside. In the same pan, dry roast coriander seeds until they smell toasty and start popping here and there. Set aside. Roast the red chillies. Don't let them blacken. The entire roasting needs to be done by frequent and constant stirring. They brown pretty fast and the burned smell is not a nice one. When cool enough to handle, powder all of them together along with asafoetida and turmeric in a dry grinder or a mixie. It need not make very smooth powder. A little coarse powder would do just fine. I actually sifted the powder through a medium holed sifter. Mix well and store in an air tight container. Use within 4 months.

To use:
You could use this powder to flavor the stir fries or the rice dish with veggies. If using it for flavoring the stir fry, use about 1 TBSP for every 4 cups of veggies. When vegetables are cooked, add this powder and mix. Use more if you feel it is not strong enough. For flavoring the rice, for every cup of uncooked rice, when mixing with other vegetables, use about 2 - 3 TBSP of this powder. You could either use lime or lemon to give the tang to the dish or skip it if you have used tomatoes as part of the veggies.

Notes:
If you are among those people who add garlic to everything, omit asfoetida. Garlic and Asafoetida/hing do not go together. You could however make this without and add garlic or hing to whatever dish you make separately. We don't use garlic for everything so I added hing.

Enjoy.

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