LIVE TO COOK

Yup! Mustard sprouts!

When you live in tiny apartment and have a window sill with few hours of sunshine, when you have a green thumb that will fade if you don’t grow anything green, sprouts are a good option.

Anything, from sprouted seed to the plant with few inches of growth is a sprout. These tiny plants are nothing but pack of nutrients. A Table spoon of seeds will give you greens enough to toss into a salad.

From start to finish everything will end in 2 weeks. No worries about mold or rot, summer or winter, sun or rain, pests or disease. With a shallow bowl or tray, soil, 1 or 2 table spoons of seeds and water, we will get greens to enjoy, year round.

Here’s what I did.

Took a table spoon of Brown mustard seeds in a cup . Soaked over night in water. Drained and covered the cup with a damp cloth. After 24 hours the seeds sprouted .

Took a shallow bowl. Drilled few holes for drainage. Filled the bowl with potting soil. Spread the sprouted seeds evenly over the soil and covered the seeds loosely with soil to 1/4 inch thickness.

Kept the soil moist but not damp. After two or three days the plants started to grow. Misted with water daily. When they reached 2 to 3 inches, cut the plants near the soil and used it in the missi roti recipe below.

We have to do this every 2 or 3 weeks to get constant supply. We can grow methi and pea shoots like this. After cutting the plants for cooking, I will pour hot boiling water over the soil in the bowl, wait till it drains and cools well and use it for next batch along with few handfuls of new soil. The leftover stems and roots from the previous batch will become manure to the next batch!

The Recipe for Missi Roti : (This is Tarla Dalal’s Recipe)

• 1 Cup Besan (Gram flour)
• 1 Cup atta (Whole wheat flour)
• 2 tbsp oil or ghee (Clarified Butter)
• 1 tbsp Kasoori Methi (Dried fenugreek leaves)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp jeera (Cumin Seeds)
• a pinch of hing (Asafetida)
• a pinch of haldi (Turmeric Powder)

Mix all the ingredients. Add enough water to make a dough of rolling consistency. Cover it and keep aside for half an hour. Make small balls and roll them slightly thicker than the usual chapati (flat bread of India). Cook on hot griddle with or without oil or in a hot tandoor (clay oven).

I replaced the kasoori methi with 1/2 cup of fresh mustard sprouts and followed the recipe. The outcome looked like this…

I have been preparing recipes for all the alphabets so far covered by Nupur’s A-Z of vegetables and this time I am able to post them before deadline. What a coincidence! N is for Nupur and so is for Naraththai puri and Nellimulli pachchidi.

Naraththai puri:

Naraththai is a Tamil name for a citrus fruit. As per wikipedia, the word “Orange” comes from Narangi (Sanskrit) or Naraththai (Tamil).

I searched the internet for the correct English term for this fruit, which might be helpful for my friends to find and enjoy. The description for Sour Orange resembles Naraththai more. In Tamil, we also refer to it as “Naarththangai”. In some homes, they grow this tree in their garden. But generally, we buy these. The ones that are sold in market is called “jaadhi naarthangai” and the home grown are called “naattu naarthangai”. Home grown naarththangai are bitter than the market ones. We make pickle, a condiment called “pachchadi”, and if the juice is not bitter we can make mixed rice similar to lemon rice.

We can preserve these fruits by sun drying them after curing with salt and turmeric powder. In my home town, all the houses will have a “Naarththangai jaadi” along with “Puli” (Tamarind) and “uppu” (Salt) jaadi (Clay jar). We use these sun dried naarthangai and pickles with yogurt rice. These are considered as home remedy for indigestion and bringing back the lost appetite. The sour taste of naarthangai helps in controlling nausea.

In US, I have not been able to find this fruit in the super markets. I have the sun dried ones brought from India stored in my freezer which I used to make puri.

Here’s what I did:

Took 8-10 pieces of the sun dried naarthangai and soaked in ¼ Cup of water. When they became soft, Ground them in to a paste (using the soaked water) with ½ teaspoon of salt (note that the sun dried fruits have salt), a handful of fenugreek leaves, 5-6 curry leaves, ½ teaspoon of red chilli powder, a pinch of turmeric powder and a pinch of asafetida and ¼ tea spoon of mustard seeds.

In a medium sized bowl, I added 1¼ cups of whole wheat flour to the paste. Mixed it well and kneaded in to pliable dough. Took a walnut sized ball of dough and rolled into 2 inch disc. Took 2 cups of oil in a frying pan and heated it till a small pinch of dough dropped into the oil returned to the surface immediately. Dropped the rolled discs carefully into the hot oil and fried till puffy. Removed it with a slotted spoon and drained it in a paper towel. This is how it looked…

 

Nellimulli Pachchidi:

Nellimulli is the Tamil term for dried amla (Indian Gooseberry). Nellimulli or Dried Amla has lots of medicinal values. It is considered as a good source of vitamin C.

 

Pachchidi is raita, a condiment made with yogurt base.

This recipe is prepared especially for “dwadashi” feast. Dwadashi is the day we end our fast called “Ekadashi vratha”.

Here’s what I did:

Took 20-25 pieces of dried amla and soaked in ¼ cup of water. When they got soft, Ground them into coarse paste with ¼ cup of fresh grated coconut, 1 green chilli, ¼ teaspoon of cumin seeds, 3 curry leaves and ¼ teaspoon of salt(If you buy salted dry amla, grind without salt).

Took the paste in a bowl and mixed it with 1 cup of home made plain yogurt, added salt to taste. Heated ½ teaspoon of oil in a small pan and put mustard seeds and asafetida in it. When the mustard seeds spluttered, poured it into the amla yogurt mixture and mixed well. This is how it looked…