Mung Bean Soup -- Moong Dal Ayurveda way

Mung Bean is BIG in Ayurveda. As I read through I see whole green mung(moong) dal referred to having magical and powerful effects. It seems to be as magical as the magical bean of Jack and the Bean Stalk.

"Mung bean soup pacifies all three doshas and is nutritious yet easy to digest. Mung Bean Soup recipe is used to clear even the most chronic, troublesome digestive issues and used to enhance overall health and vitality."

Really ??? You say to yourself. Those tiny shiny green beans and they want you to make a soup of it, a dal actually, and that dal is supposed to get rid of the toxins in your body ??? Whoa, and you fall right into it and before you know you have this big pot of green moong dal bubbling on the stove and you are having a bowl full of it everyday. It does not exactly detox if you follow it up with cut mirchi bhaji and samosas with your afternoon chai but what the...

Actually the green mung(moong) dal is pretty delicious. Made the Ayurvedic way without the onions and garlic, makes it not rich but very tasty. I deviated from the recipe a little and followed my Mom's way,added vegetables like cauliflower and carrots. I think greens like spinach would be a very good idea too.

The split and hulled moong dal, which is the yellow moong dal has equal magical properties and you can use that instead of whole green mung beans. The yellow moong dal cooks faster and is also easier to digest.

When you are making the mung bean soup and you want to follow the Ayurveda detox regime you need to determine which category you fall in. Depending on the dosha you have you have to use different spices. The recipe I have here is loosely based on Kapha Balancing Mung Bean Soup. I have used whole green mung and also the pressure cooker. You can use yellow moong and do it in a regular pot.


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Green Mung Bean Soup

Wash and soak 1 cup of whole green moong beans for couple of hours or overnight. You can skip the soaking if in a hurry.

Pressure cook the beans with double the water, little salt and 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder

Heat Ghee in a soup pot. I used Olive Oil about 3 tsp

Temper the oil with
1/2 tsp of Whole Cumin/Whole Jeera
1/2 tsp of Whole Fennel/Whole Saunf,
6-7 whole Fenugreek seeds/Whole Methi seeds
and a pinch of asafoetida/Hing.

If adding vegetables add them now and saute for a few minutes

Add the cooked mung beans

Add 1" ginger grated or pounded in a mortar and pestle

Add 1/2 tsp of fresh corriander powder and salt to taste. Mix well. Add about 2 cups of water and let the dal come to a boil. At this point you can blend the dal to make a puree, I do not.

Adjust for seasonings. Squeeze juice of a lime quarter and enjoy hot.

Alternately

Skip step 2 i.e. do not pressure cook the dal at the beginning. Instead start the whole process in a pressure cooker and pressure cook the dal after adding all the spices.

I am sending this off to MLLA -19 hosted by Simple Indian Food and the brainchild of Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook

Detoxifying Tea -- the Cleanse

Yesterday I had two uninterrupted hours to myself, bang in the middle of the day, a rare opportunity on a week day. I could have taken a much needed shower, cooked something more elaborate than serving up masoor dal, baked tilapia and aloo-gajar yet again or at least cooked something, anything. But did I do that ? No.

Instead I googled for "detox diet ayurveda 3 days". Don't ask me why. Maybe I overdid the Biryani that we got on Sunday and the body was sending toxic signals.At least I didn't ask for "detox diet in a packet". Ok hold on, let me google this. Guess what there IS a detox diet in a packet, what fun, packaged, processed and with all the chemicals.

But the ayurveda detox thingy is not easy. They don't do things fast, to do it the right way, you need 60 whole days, S-I-X-T-Y, who has that ? But they have a point, the body is like your child, no point hurrying it, it is best to go with the flow, to let things balance out gradually.

"A complete ayurvedic cleansing program includes 15 days of preparation and 45 days of actual cleansing. Ayurvedic healers recommend paying special attention to your diet during these two phases to avoid overtaxing your digestion and to enable purification to occur easily and completely. Maharishi Ayurveda does not recommend fasting or entirely liquid diets such as juices, because that may cause your digestive agni to become imbalanced."

Why Do You Need to Detox ?

According to Ayurveda, there are three different types of toxins that can impact the physiology: ama -- the waste product of incomplete digestion, amavisha -- the reactive form of ama i.e ama + other doshas and garvisha -- external toxins from the environment, exposure to chemicals etc..

Ayurveda recommends a program of internal cleansing at every change of seasons to clear the channels of the body of toxins that may have built up over the previous season. Detox is particularly recommended at the time when winter is phasing into spring.

The Detox Routine according to Ayurveda

The following is a general guideline of what to eat and to avoid during this phase.

To know more in details about the kind of fruits and vegetables that you can eat depending on your body type, check this Food Guidelines

Along with the diet you also need to follow a routine of sleep, exercise and massaging. And then there is the eating habit you need to follow, of never skipping a meal and eating slowly, chewing each morsel.

Basically "the Ayurveda Detox Diet is what your Mom has been telling you since you were six and you never listened until Google told you to".

But seriously what I like about the detox plan is the use of spices in cooking the vegetables.

"Ginger, turmeric, coriander, fennel and fenugreek help open up the channels of the body and support the flushing of toxins via the skin, urinary tract, colon and liver"

These were the main spices (along with Nigella seeds and mustard seeds) that were used in the everyday Bengali Food that my Ma made. She did not use garlic or onions much and neither does everyday home cooked Bangla meals call for that. Everyday Bengali food is light, subtly spiced, not much garlic, onion, red chili or cream and tends to retain the texture and taste of the vegetables. Ahh, if we could just add some fish to that detox diet, I could have sealed the deal

Main Reference: Ayurvedic Detox Diet -- Maharishi Ayurveda

Though I don't have the determination or resources to go on a sixty day detox diet right now and I need to use up the 20% discount coupons at the local restaurants, I decided to do my body some good by making and sipping the Detoxifying Tea throughout the day.

This is a very light and extremely easy to make tea. A big cup of this and small sips throughout the day will help you feel good about yourself and you will also get all the water. Just drinking this tea alone will do nothing to detox I am sure but here's to a better beginning.


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Detox Tea

Original Recipe

Bring to boil two quarts of water in the morning.

Add 1/4 t. whole cumin,
1/2 t. whole coriander,
1/2 t. whole fennel to the water and let steep for ten minutes with the lid on. I also added some fresh grated ginger and 3-4 Tulsi(Holy Basil) leaves.

Strain out the spices and pour the water into a thermos.

Sip throughout the day.

Disclaimer: I am not a Doctor. Biology was not even amongst my main 4 subjects in High School

Kundru Posto -- Tindora in Poppy Seeds Paste

I am a sucker for Posto. Even as a kid, I loved Posto more than anyone at home. Posto or the tiny beige seeds of Indian Poppy(Khus Khus), ground and seasoned with mustard oil, green chili and little coarse salt, the Kancha Posto bata was a favorite. The fresh smell of the wet ground posto, ground with little water on the shil-nora the black pock marked stone, was like the smell of the wet earth after the first rain. When this ground paste was mixed with a liberal sprinkle of golden yellow pungent mustard oil and slit fiery green chilis the simple paste became filled with a sharp new taste. With white rice it was heaven. The bare wet ground posto formed the base of several other dishes in Posto loving Bengal. The mornings my Ma doled out those fine beige poppy seeds to be soaked in water and later to be made into a paste by the daily house help, I would be ecstatic. I knew there would be alu posto, posto'r bara(poppy seed paste mixed with rice flour etc. and made into fritters) and always a little posto bata waiting for me at dinner. My Probashi and Ghoti family teased me for my love of Posto. They said, that I should be married off to a Bangal and then I could have as much Posto as I liked.Being away from Bengal for long, they didn't know that Posto or Poppy seeds was not a staple for the Bangal, in fact for people from East Bengal(now Bangladesh) Posto is not even deemed as important as it is to People from West Bengal. Posto was actually the food of the people of Rarh, the "land of red soil" on the westernmost corner of West Bengal. More so for the people of Bankura and Birbhum district in this area. This region has a very dry and hot climate and they believe posto has the effect of a coolant and protects them against the heat. In the days when there was no restriction in cultivating Indian poppy and farmers in this area grew poppy in abundance, the posto seeds became an integral part of their diet. A mid morning meal of posto and bhaat protected the farmers from the searing, dry heat as they worked in the open fields. As the price of the posto or Indian Poppy seeds has been rising, the poor in Bengal can hardly afford an ingredient which once formed a key part of their meal.

Now to the Kundru Posto or Tindora in Poppy Seeds Paste. 

Kundru or Tindora was not vegetable common in Bengal. I can barely recall any Kundru-is dish from my childhood. In fact Tindora is or was as far removed from the Bengali Food Culture as is Posto Bata from the Punjabis. I started cooking Tindora or Kundru only after coming to the US, sometimes you need to travel miles to recognize something that was once close to you.But even then I made it not too often. 

When I saw Sharmila's Kundru Sabzi, I loved the idea of tossing the vegetable with so many spices and then cooking it. And then I also loved how a friend made fried Tindora with some whole poppy seeds sprinkled on top. 

So why not make a Kundru Posto I thought and as a fusion why not toss the Kundru with some spices before cooking ? And that is how we made Kundru Posto or Tindora in Poppy seeds paste, an inter-region marriage of a vegetable and a condiment from two different regions of India. A bowlful of this vegetable followed with a bowl of dal is a satisfying meal by itself. But to get the full flavor and taste you need to eat it with white rice Read more...

Kundru Posto

Sadly I have no measurements and will update this recipe when I remember to take measures next time

Chop Kundru or Tindora vertically in 4 longitudinal slices. 

Chop Potato in long half-moon slices

In a bowl toss the chopped kundru/tindora with little cumin powder, coriander powder, red chili powder , dry mango powder(aam choor), little turmeric and salt. 

Heat Mustard Oil in a Kadhai. 

Add the Tindora and saute for 5-6 minutes until it is soft. Remove and keep aside.

Now temper the oil with Nigella Seeds/Kalonji and Dry Red Chili When the spices pop, add the potatoes and saute with a sprinkle of Turmeric powder .

Saute for a 4-5 minutes. Add the sauteed Tindora. Cover with a lid and saute intermittently till kundru softens. 

Add poppy seeds paste, salt and a little sugar, and mix well. Add a little water and cook till the tindora is cooked and the water has dried up. Adjust for salt and seasonings.

Other similar Posto dishes: Alu Posto Jhinge Chingri Posto

Trivia:In 1757 the last nawab of Bengal was dethroned by the British East India Company, who concentrated on maximizing the cultivation of opium in Bengal. The drug promised to generate huge profits, not only in the local market, but also in a far bigger one—China. The company’s greed was so great that at one point they forced farmers in much of Bengal to devote all their arable land to its cultivation. So it’s not surprising that the posto seeds produced in this enormous poppy-growing zone became such an important element in the local diet. (From this lovely article by Chitrita Banerjee)