Hesaru KaaLu Soppina Palya

The common thing in the Cuisine of four southern states of india is the ‘Rice’ as the staple food. Rice eaten with lenthil, use of dried red chillies, green chilies, fresh coconut, tamarind are quite similar in these states. It might just differ in the spiciness of the food.

Karnataka food is considered to be mildest of the lot. Usage of palm sugar is high when compared to red chillies. Majority of them are vegeterians in Karnataka thus benefit Vegans from every meal of the day :)!

Soppu in kannada means leafy vegetable. Under this comes a wide range like menthya soppu, dantina soppu, sabsige soppu, kotambri soppu etc. Hesaru kaaLu in kannada means green gram or mung bean. So together compounds to HesarukaaLu – Soppina Palya.

Leafy vegetables are naturally low in fat, high in protein, fiber, iron and calcium. Along with this green gram or mung bean forms a good combination for a healthy vegetable side dish what we call as Palya in kannada.

Typically this palya is made with dantina soppu {which is known as Amaranthus in English, thandukkeerai or cerikkirai in Tamil and Thotakoora in telgu} with loads of coconut, huli pudi (something similar to sambar powder), palm sugar.

Yes this recipe again downloaded from my mom’s dairy :-p. But here I deviate from dantu to Spinach ( due to unavailability) and coconut to some onions + tomatoes though I stick to huli pudi and palm sugar (here palm sugar is optional but this is 1 of my desired ingredients that u can find in almost all of my typical recipes :-p)

You can serve this as per your taste either with rice or with chapatis.
Here goes the recipe..

Ingridients:
Spinach – 1 Pkt ( I use the one we get here in pkts which is around 300gms)
Hesaru kaalu/ Mung bean – ½ Cup
Onions finely chopped – 1medium size
Tomatoes finely chopped – 1 medium size
Salt as per taste
Palm Sugar – 1tspn
Huli Pudi or you can replace with Sambar powder – 2tspn ( u can adjust according to your taste)
Ginger grated– 1tspn
Mustard seeds – ½ tspn
Cumin seeds – ½ tspn
Turmeric – ¼ tspn
Pinch of asafetida
Oil – 1Tbspn

Method:

• Wash and chop the Spinach finely. Heat oil in a pan on high heat, add mustard seeds and wait for it to splutter and then add cumin seeds, ginger, turmeric, and asafetida.
• Now add chopped onions and fry on low-medium heat for sometime.
• To this add the hesaru kaaLu/ mung bean and add around 1-2cups of water, cover and cook on medium-high heat. Stir occasionally; add some more water if required and cook until the beans are well done. This might take about 15-20min.
• Then add chopped spinach and mix well.
• To this add salt, huli pudi or sambar powder, and palm sugar; mix well and cook.
• Lastly add chopped tomatoes and further cook for a minute and take off the heat to give a dash of lemon.
  
  Traditional cooking involves cooking the mung bean and spinach with rest of the ingredients and then adding freshly grated coconut at the end.
  
  Hope you all like this recipe. Do let me know the results after you guys try out – any variations in the recipes are also welcome :)!
  Ciao next week again, Happy Weekend and lucky us we have a long weekend ;)!!