6 recipes that use green gram, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Bean sprouts, takes 15 minutes. It is most often cooked with coriander, curry leaves and lemon juice.
Run out of green gram? Any whole pulse, such as moth beans or chickpeas.
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Sprouting whole green grams makes them crunchier, quicker to cook and more nutritious. All you need is muslin, water and a warm spot, and they're ready in 3–4 days. Use them in salads, bhel, usal and stir-fries. Any other whole pulse sprouts the same way.
Bhusu is a festive farsan mix: crunchy fried pulses and lentils, three kinds of sev, tum tum, bundi, sakarpada cubes, puffed rice, cashews and peanuts, all tossed in a sweet, sour and spicy seasoning. It makes a large batch for Diwali and keeps for weeks in air-tight tins. It's a project spread over a few days, because the pulses need soaking first. Make the jini sev, jadi sev, tum tum and sakarpada from their own recipes in this section.
This is the big festive chevdo: crisp potato straws and rounds, fried chana dal, green grams and pawa, with cashews, peanuts and sultanas, curry leaves and green chillies, all coated in a sweet-hot seasoning and a fragrant whole-spice tempering with lemon. It makes a large batch for Diwali and keeps for weeks in air-tight tins. Golf potatoes are small, round potatoes.
An unusual, generous one-pot curry: boiled lentils, peas, beans, carrots and a few noodles simmered in a coconut milk gravy flavoured with a fresh mint, garlic and green chilli paste and a roasted masala of fenugreek seeds, cardamom, coriander and cinnamon. A curry-leaf tempering goes on top. Serve hot with chapaties or plain boiled rice.
Osaman is the cooking water from boiled whole green grams, gently spiced with ginger, chilli, tamarind and jaggery and finished with a cinnamon, clove and curry-leaf tempering. It's thin, soothing and easy to digest, so it's good for anyone feeling unwell. The leftover boiled green grams can be used to make a curry.
A fresh, crunchy salad of home-sprouted mung beans with juicy pineapple, coconut, cucumber and cherry tomatoes, dressed with orange juice, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It is light, sweet and tangy, full of protein, and makes a healthy lunch on its own. Chill everything well, and add the lettuce at the last minute so it stays crisp.
Indian
