light meals : muradabadi mung ki daal aur parval ka chokha

Mung ki daal is the most frequent daal in my kitchen. Not only it cooks faster, I like the taste too and the simplicity with which I can dress up this daal into anything I want. I make it into a sookhi mung ki daal sometimes and add some methi sprouts to mung daal some other times. Mung ka dhokla is a recipe I repeat frequently for our evening snacks or weekend breakfasts. But the most simple thing I do with dhuli mung (skinned yellow mung beans) is just to pressure cook it and add some chopped tomato onions and have as it is. I love it as a soup, snack or a meal whatever way I need it.

This way of dressing boiled mung ki daal with just a few chopped raw onion and tomatoes is a very common way of cooking the daal in western UP, specifically Muradabad. My sister's mother in law makes this daal and everyone loves the clean flavours of this simple daal. The most wonderful thing is that there is hardly any recipe to note down. But let me warn you that the simpler recipes need to be accurate to make sense.

Recipe of  Muradabadi mung ki daal

ingredients
(2-3 servings)

To pressure cook..
split mung daal 1/2 cup (rinsed)
water 1 and 1/4 cup
turmeric powder 1 tsp
hing or asafotida 1 pinch
ghee 1/2 tsp
salt to taste

to serve..
roasted cumin powder (bhuna jeera) 2 tsp
chopped tomatoes 1/4 cup
chopped red onions or bulbs of spring onions 1/4 cup
chopped coriander greens 2-3 tbsp
chopped green chillies to taste
ghee to serve 1/2 tsp or more per serving

procedure

Mix everything listed under 'to pressure cook' and pressure cook till the whistle blows up. Switch off the flame and let the pressure cooker rest till ready to be opened. Depending on the size of the pressure cooker, the daal will be thick and done or it may be a little al dante. Let the daal simmer without the lid if needs more cooking but only till it gets thick and done, not mushy or pasty.

Add the bhuna jeera (roasted cumin) powder and half of the chopped onion and mix.

Pour the daal in individual bowls and garnish with the remaining chopped onion, tomatoes and dhaniya patta. Drizzle with ghee and serve hot.

I usually make some bharta or chokha with such simple light meals, mostly when we are home after a long travel or have eaten out a bit. Light home cooked meals serve well on such occasions but I can live on such meals even in my everyday life.

This time I had made this Parval ka chokha that I love to bits and keep repeating it till the parval season lasts. Again the recipe is very simple but needs to be accurate to give the same results.

Recipe of Parval ka chokha 

ingredients 

to pressure cook together..
parval (pointed gourd) 10 large ones (scraped and halved)
baby potatoes 2 peeled and halved
salt to taste
1/4 cup water

to finish..
chopped onion 2 tbsp
minced garlic 1 tsp
minced green chillies 1/2 tsp or to taste
chopped coriander greens 1 tbsp
mustard oil 2 tbsp

procedure 

Mix the ingredients for pressure cooking and cook till the first whistle. Let the pressure cooker rest till ready to open. Mash the boiled vegetables with the help of a potato masher or the back of a serving spoon.

Add all the ingredients to finish and serve right away. This parval ka chokha keeps well for a couple of hours at room temperature and tastes great with daal and multigrain rotis or with daal and rice meals.

Try and cook this mung ki daal and parval ka chokha together whenever you need a light meal to cleanse your body of overeating, festive eating or eating out. Or just to have a pleasure of simpler warm meals cooked at home. I assure you wont be disappointed.

Both these Muradabadi mung ki daal and parval ka chokha are one of those foods that I eat in large amounts. Often without any roti or rice to go with it. I am sure you know it already if you have been reading my blogs for some time.

Cheers.

mung ka dhokla recipe | dhokla made with mung daal

I can't decide whether I like mung ka dhokla more or the regular instant dhokla made with besan. These are the two variants I make more but a corn dhokla is also a winter favourite. Dhokla is a steamed 'bread' made using lentils and tempered with a mix of ingredients that make it nice tart, sweet and hot. Dhokla can be served as a gluten free snack, an appetizer or even in a thali meal. I wouldn't mind some dhokla with a salad though. 

Mung or moong ki daal is skinned mung beans considered very easy to digest and fairly rich in protein. Mung ka dhokla is a steamed bread that is served cold with a tangy hot and sweet tempering that makes the dhokla quite moist and soft. Actually I would say all types of dhokla are basically steamed lentil breads way more superior than the white commercial breads. Very similar to corn breads of Mexico but served differently. The Indian punch is unmistakable in a dhokla which is specifically a Gujrati riot of flavors.

 Besan ka dhokla is more common in our homes and most sweet shops all over north India. Everyone likes the dhokla with varying combinations of sweet, sour and hot flavours melding together with some coconut, sesame and mustard seeds in the tadka. I skip sesame most of the times although I love sesame otherwise. May be because I grew up loving the dhokla without sesame.

Mung ka dhokla is not very common but I started making it quite by an accidental lie I had to speak. Yes I do lie sometimes but I always have valid reasons for it. The valid reason for this lie came in the form of an unexpected query about the usual besan ka dhokla I had made one day. This was at my in law's place and I was a new bride on a spree to impress everyone with the things I could do. So the dhokla that day was appreciated a lot and after eating a few fat pieces of dhokla my father in law asked if those were 'mung ka dhokla'. I was startled at this question as I had got to know he can't digest besan that well and he had already eaten a lot of dhokla for my comfort. I said yes it is moong ka dhokla just to not panic him. He did not have any indigestion issues that day thankfully but then he started demanding for mung ka dhokla quite often. Later on I made the real mung ka dhokla but I wonder how could he not know the taste the first time.

This time when I visited my in laws for an extended weekend I was reminded of how he wanted mung ka dhokla last time I had gone and I could not make it then. I had time on hand this time around and made this one dish for everyone to enjoy.

There are special utensils for steaming dhokla but not to worry if you don;t have them. Keep a large vessel ready to boil water over which a metallic strainer will be placed. The dhokla will be steamed in a flat based thali (or large baking dish) kept inside the strainer and covered. You can steam dhokla in idli steamer as well.

ingredients 
(makes enough dhokla for 6 people as a hearty snack)

mung daal (skinned mung beans) 2 cups
salt to taste
soda bi carb 1 tsp
peanut oil 1 tbsp
mustard seeds 2 tsp
slit green chillies 3-4
curry patta 3-4 strings, leaves separated
grated coconut 1/2 cup packed
lime juice 2 tbsp
sugar 1 tbsp
hing or asafotida 1 pinch

procedure

Soak mung daal overnight and grind without added water the next morning. Soaking the mung daal for at least 4 hours is required so keep it ready if you need it in the evening. The paste should look like idli batter or loose cake batter in consistency.

Add salt and soda bicarb and mix really well. Pour the batter in one or 2 greased thalis depending on how large your steaming vessel is and how thick (tall) dhokla you want.

Place on the steamer contraption and steam for about 15 minutes or till a knife comes out clean.

Cool and make cuts into the steamed dhokla. Prepare a tempering to pour over it.

To make the tempering, Heat the oil and add hing to it. Now tip in the mustard seeds, green chillies and curry patta and let them cook a bit. Now pour 1 cup of water and add sugar to the mix. Let the mixture come to a boil before taking it off the flame. Add the lime juice and pour over the steamed dhokla. Let it rest till the dhokla soaked up all the water and tempering. Serve as desired, garnished with grated coconut.

This dhokla stays well for 8-10 hours on room temperature. I like mung ka dhokla better than the besan ka dhokla that I make at home. I think mung ka dhokla has it's own taste that grows on you. But Arvind likes the besan ka dhokla better. We rarely have common food choices you know.

I suggest making thinner dhokla when making it with mung daal as the rising is better this way. Or else you can add a tsp of fruit salt to the batter to make it rise more.

mung daal with fenugreek sprouts | methi wali mung ki daal ...

Methi wali mung ki daal would not make you drool when you hear it. But cook it with fenugreek micro greens or sprouts and see how the mung ki daal transforms with a hint of garlic and ghee.

Mung ki daal gets repeated the most in my kitchen. Not only because it is a healthy lentil, I love the taste and cook the mung ki daal in many different ways and the daal behaves differently with different treatments given to it. Like if pressure cooked, the daal is a buttery texture, if pan cooked the daal remains a little coarse but with so much more taste and a mild aroma in it. Mung ki sookhi daal is another favourite of mine. I add baby spinach to mung daal more frequently and sometimes bathua leaves whenever I want to add some greens to the mung daal, but methi greens are rare in my mung daal. Unless it is tender methi (fenugreek) sprouts.

The fenugreek sprouts are actually sort of micro greens of methi. I often sprinkle some methi seeds in a plastic packaging tray that comes with meat or chicken from the meat shop. It is easy to grow micro greens of some seeds in such re-purposed trays or containers, just fill them up with a layer of soil after poking holes in the bottom and sprinkle the seeds, water the tray sparsely and wait for 2-3 weeks. The micro greens or sprouts will make you happy for salads or curries.

You can grow such micro greens of mustard, radishes, peas and chickpeas easily. Just snip them, rinse well and enjoy home grown greens.

This recipe of mung daal with methi sprouts is easy, but takes about half an hour to cook at a leisurely pace since I prefer doing it in a pan. This daal is always cooked when I have a peaceful alone time in the kithcen and do some more chores along with the daal being cooked with all it's aromas to fill me up.

Pressure cooking saves time and you can always do that if you are okay with the textures.

ingredients..
(2 servings)
dhuli mung (skinned mung beans) 1/2 cup
turmeric powder 1 tsp
salt 1/2 tsp or to taste
water 1.5 cups (more if required)
fenugreek sprouts 1.5 cups
chopped garlic 2 tsp
mild green chillies chopped 2-3 tbsp or to taste
cumin seeds 1 tsp
ghee 1 tbsp or a bit more if you like

procedure..

Cook the mung daal along with water, turmeric powder and salt in a deep pan over medium to low flame. Keep stirring in between to avoid spilling the watery liquid. The daal takes about 15-20 minutes to cook to desirable texture. Add small amounts of water if required during the cooking time. Do not cover the pan as the daal is likely to spill over if you cover it.

Prepare a tempering with ghee and cumin when the daal is cooked. Heat ghee in a separate pan, add the cumin seeds and wait till they splutter and get aromatic. Add a pinch of hing if you like and then tip in the garlic and wait till the garlic gets pink. Take the pan off the heat, add the green chillies and the methi sprouts, mix well quickly and pour over the cooked daal. Stir lightly and cover for a couple of minutes before serving it.

This daal is best eaten just after the tempering. It makes a meal for me sometimes, or a roti and a large serving of a plain vegetable curry is what I like with this.

You might like to use a little more ghee to the tempering, please go ahead and add more ghee especially if you are not having any other fats or carbs with this daal.

This is truly satvik food, cooked to heal and nourish the body, mind and soul. Mung daal has always been the food for breaking fasts, for cleansing and for light eating. With fenugreek sprouts it becomes so fragrant and flavourful. The garlic is the only non satvik element in the daal if you talk in strict Hindu terms, but who cares when garlic has so much healing properties and is so yummy. I would recommend using the mild green chillies in this daal and use them liberally as the chilly capsaicin adds immense flavours to this daal.

I use the Anahiem type green peppers a lot, they are called Bangalore chillies here and lend a great taste to a few curries I cook. We had a nice mutton mince curry with lots of these peppers and loved it so much. The recipe is coming soon. Stay tuned.