COLOUR:
Green like leaf SHAPE: Round like marble
SIZE: Small as gram KINGDOM: Plantae VALUE: Just as Jade!!
Green coloured,
sweet flavoured, high in fibre, rich in nutrients, cooks faster, helps control
body weight, lowers blood pressure and much more.
Wash it. Soak
it. Sprout it. Cook it. Grind it. Make rasam, curry and have it with hot,
steamed rice and rotis.
Dry roast
it. Dry grind it. Use the flour to make tasty rotis or parathas.
Wash it.
Soak it. Wet grind it. Generate healthy versions of dosas and idlis too. That’s
green gram for you.
Combine it
with greens. Watch what’s cooking…delicious red coloured rasam boiling and a
close-to-finish fresh green coloured curry tossing!
Dish Type: South
Indian Vegetarian Stew
Time required: 40 min
Serves: 4
persons (approx. )
Ingredients
For pressure cooking:
Green gram 75 gms
Water 250 ml
Ghee 1 tsp
Turmeric A pinch
Dantina
soppu 1 bunch (amaranth
leaves)
Tomato 2 nos.
Salt to
taste ½ tbsp. (at the time of adding chopped greens)
For grinding:
Raw coconut ¼
of a coconut
Rasam powder 2
tbsps. approx.
Cooked green
gram and greens 1 tbsp
Cooked
tomatoes 2
nos.
For seasoning:
Ghee 1 tsp
Mustard
seeds ½ tsp
Cumin seeds ½ tsp
Asafoetida A pinch
Garlic pods few (optional)
While boiling:
Salt to
taste ½ tbsp. (when ground mix of rasam powder and raw
coconut is added)
Tamarind
paste ½ tsp
Directions
Wash green
gram thoroughly. Keep it for boiling on low flame in a pressure cooker along
with water, turmeric and ghee.
Wash greens
(dantina soppu) and tomatoes thoroughly in salt water. Drain out the water.
Chop greens finely. No need to chop tomatoes.
By this
time, green gram would have been half cooked. Remove the lid of the pressure
cooker. Add these chopped greens and salt and over this, add tomatoes. After 2
whistles, switch off the pressure cooker. Let it cool.
While the cooker is cooling….grate raw coconut. You still have
time to spare? Use it to read footnotes given at the end of this recipe.
By now,
pressure in the cooker would have subsided. Transfer the contents on to a
colander to drain the water to another vessel. Use this precious water as you
proceed making the rasam.
Finish
grinding using ingredients listed under “For
grinding”. Grind it to a fine paste. Add this to the drained water that you
stored just now. Add salt. Boil for about 5 min. Add tamarind juice. Let it
boil for another 5 min. Switch off the burner.
Now is the
time for seasoning. Heat a drop of ghee in a small skillet. Do not heat it too
much. When it is just hot, put mustard seeds. When they crackle, switch off and
immediately put cumin seeds and asafoetida. Pour it on to the boiled rasam.
Hmmm….Fresh
n fragrant Green Gram Rasam is ready.
Serve it hot
with steamed rice.
Tete – a - Tete:
When you finished cooking dals and
veggies, are you sure you drained the water used for cooking? Rest assured,
your nutrition too has gone down the drain! Not a healthy practice…right? Bother about the broth?….Yes you must! Why
miss a chance when you can aim for the best of health and taste? Preserve this
precious water to make rasam.
Use the remaining cooked green gram
and greens to make “Green Gram Curry with Greens”.
When using greens, there is no need
to add coriander leaves or curry leaves.
Quantity of water can be adjusted to
suit taste and consistency. Consistency can be as thin as soup or as thick as
porridge depending on the amount of water used. Similarly taste can vary from
hot and spicy to mildly spicy or made bland.
Same recipe can be followed to
prepare rasam using Kadale Kaalu (Chick peas), Hurali (Horse gram), Alasandi
kaalu (Cow peas).
Lentils and pulses should be cooked
slowly in low flame for a long time to achieve a comfortably creamy texture. While
cooking them, it is better to add a pinch of turmeric powder and a tsp of cow
ghee. Turmeric has antiseptic properties. Cow ghee gives a rich and pleasing
flavour. A tsp of ghee consumed everyday improves blood circulation, lubricates bone joints and cleanses liver.
Recipes viewed here are a part of "Mangala's Potluck" section in this blog
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