Sprouted Moong Salsa

This is a simple salad that I make often at home for it is tasty as a chaat and good as a salad. I have named it sprouted moong salsa because I use all ingredients that go into salsa plus the sprouted green gram to make this salad. Another best part of this salad is just with a tad bit of salt it strikes so well without any other seasoning. It is so simple to make with every ingredient usually available at home all the time yet is very refreshing and healthy.

Serves: 2

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: Nil

Ingredients:

1.      Sprouted green gram – 1 ½ cups

2.    Onion – 1

3.    Tomato – 2

4.    Green Chilies – 2 (you can replace with 2 pinches of pepper if serving for kids)

5.     Coriander – few sprigs

6.    Lemon – ½

7.     Olive oil – ½ tbsp

8.    Salt to taste

Method:

Step 1: Take sprouted moong in a mixing bowl.

Step 2: Finely chop onion, tomato, green chilies, coriander and add all these to the moong.

Step 3: Drizzle olive oil, sprinkle salt and squeeze half a lemon into it.

Step 4: Toss the salad well and adjust salt if required.

Step 5: Serve it fresh before it starts to water.

TIPS:

*Mint leaves can be used instead of coriander.

*In the absence of fresh coriander or mint, dried herbs like Italian seasoning can be used to flavour the salad.

Mint Chutney

As Kundan is very fond of pudina I make pudina thovials frequently but I prepare pudina chutneys only for chaats. Yesterday, I had prepared a hybrid of thovial and chutney to accompany dosa. To be honest he didn’t like it as much as his favourite thovial but what I liked was the bright green colour & taste. It was very fresh and you can feel the taste of mint while in thokku or thovial though the flavour is stunning, the taste is dominated by tamarind, dry chilies and salt.

Serves: 2

Preparation Time 20 minutes (for cleaning mint)

Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Mint – 1 bunch

2.    Coconut grated – 2 tbsp

3.    Ginger – 1” piece

4.    Green Chilies – 3

5.     Tamarind – 1” piece or 1 tbsp pulp (Alternatively you can add juice of half a lemon)

6.    Salt as per taste

7.     Oil – 1 tbsp

8.    Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp

9.    Urad dal – ½ tbsp.

10. Asafoetida – 1 pinch

Method:

Step 1: Clean and wash the mint leaves thoroughly. Sauté it in a tsp of oil only until it softens and colour changes. Let it cool down.

Step 2: Prepare tempering by sprinkling asafoetida & spluttering mustard seeds in oil and then roasting urad dal in it till brown. Keep this aside.

Step 3: Sauté green chilies in the same kadai with grease left in it.

Step 4: Now in a mixer jar take mint, coconut, peeled & sliced ginger, green chilies, tamarind, salt and grind it well. Add water as required and adjust salt.

Step 5: Take it into a serving bowl and pour the prepared tempering over it.

Step 6: Serve with idli or dosa.

Soyabean Laddu

I have not made sweets for sometime now and thought of trying soyabean laddu whose recipe is an adaptation from nishamadhulika.com. I had tried besan laddu and urad laddu earlier from this site which everyone in the family liked so I wanted to use up the soybean I had for this recipe. Coincidentally there was this local dessert contest for which my neighbor recommended this and it got critical acclaims but didn’t win for lack of glamour. 

Serves: You get approx. 25 laddus

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.       Soybean – 1 ½ cups

2.      Wheat flour – 1 ½ cups

3.      Sugar – 1 ¼ cup

4.      Chopped nuts – ¼ cup

5.      Cardamom powder – ¼ tsp

6.      Milk – 1 tbsp

Method:

Step 1: Prepare tagar or bura by the following method and keep aside in advance:

a.      Take sugar and ½ cup of water in a pan, switch on heat and keep stirring until it starts bubbling.

b.      Add a teaspoon of sugar and tablespoon of milk and continue stirring until you see a snow like ring on the borders. When you see it, turn off heat.

c.       But keep stirring continuously to get a porous powder called bura or tagar; this might take about 5-10 minutes.

Step 2: Dry roast the soybean and after it cools down grind to coarse flour in mixer or you can use soybean atta if you’ve.

Step 3: Melt the ghee in a pan and roast the both soybean flour and wheat flour in it till it turn brownish and beautiful aroma emanates. Let it cool down a bit.

 

 

Step 4: When the flour-mixture is warm, add sugar, chopped nuts, cardamom powder to it and mix well. Add more melted ghee if required.

Step 5: Take about a couple of heaped tablespoons of laddu mix and press and roll tightly into laddu. Repeat for the entire mixture.