It’s that time of the year when Mahabaleshwar beckons, with its myriad sunsets, fresh fragrant strawberries and over powering array of flowers. We had ourselves farm fresh and organic vegetables just off the farm.
Since we do not use fertilisers or pesticides of any kind, we pluck off cherry tomatoes and radish straight from the Canadian pharmacy plants and merrily munch it on the go!
fresh off the farm.
For a day and a half, we were just mom and son! We ate, drank and had some crazy conversations.
We both wanted something a bit healthy for our brain doping lunch, and anyways friends who love this dish have been asking for the recipe. So we decided to make it and blog it.
This is a super healthy snack. I sometimes have it as the lonesome dish for dinner too. It’s super filling, high in protein and very very healthy. It does not sit in your tummy, but leaves you feeling full and satiated. The tangy, spicy flavour makes it soooo very edible and tasty.
I optionally also add finely chopped raw mango (kairi) to it and reduce the lemon a wee bit. You can play around with it as you like. Reduce the spice, increase it (yaay!), add onions, take off the coconut, add a dash of green chutney!!! Just go for it. Not much can destroy this dish!
Add to it a dhokla mix, or to some other chaat item. Serve it mixed with broken idli and podi chutney. Let your creativity flow and do tell me also how you played with it!
Soong dal goes amazingly well with drinks. But serve it chilled. Like – absolutely and totally chilled. If you think of heating it – u might as well eat dal. So DO NOT HEAT this dish!!
Have fun! Cheers!
PS: Here is the video shoot we did for the Soong Dal. It’s very basic and rustic, as is the kitchen in our farm.
- 1 Cup Yellow Moong Dal
- 1 Tspn oil
- 1/2 Tspn Mustard Seeds
- 1/4 Tspn Hing
- 10-15 Curry Leaves
- 1 Tspn salt
- 1/4 Cup Coconut grated
- 2 Tbspn Corriander Leaves finely chopped
- 1 Tspn Green Chillies (or less/ more - according to taste)
- 1 Tbspn lemon juice
- 1 Tbspn Raw Mango (optional) finely chopped (reduce lemon juice)
- Wash and soak the yellow moong dal for 4 hours.
- Drain the water, rinse the dal and keep on a draining sieve for appx 20 minutes, so that no water is left.
- Once the water has drained, get the tadka ready. Keep the moong dal in a mixing bowl.
- In a tadka pan, add the oil.
- When hot, add the mustard seeds.
- When spluttering, add the hing and finally the curry leaves.
- All the curry leaves should splatter, so mix it with a spoon once, while still on the fire.
- Take off the fire and put it on the moong dal.
- Now add the salt, chopped corriander, coconut and green chillies (and optionally the raw mango)
- Lastly squeeze in the lemon juice.
- Mix well.
- Serve completely chilled.
It’s that time of the year again, when our farm in Mahabaleshwar is thriving and blooming. The entire farm is disrupted during the monsoons, which are heavy, non stop and torrential. In fact Mahabaleshwar gets the second highest rainfall in India, next only to Cherrapunji.
