Friday, July 29, 2011

Sweet - Tart Cowpeas / Alasandala Pulusu


Today is the last day of BM#7 and I am here with a recipe adapted from Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries.
I use red chori beans frequently in my kitchen and my MIL's red chori bean - eggplant preparation is one of our favorite dishes. When I noticed several recipes using this bean in Iyer's cookbook, I was fascinated and copied down the recipes (only the list of ingredients to be precise) to try later. And today's post happens to be one of them. A delicious, hearty, sweet- tangy dal that goes well with rice / rotis.


Ingredients: (4 Servings)
1/2 cup cowpeas / red chori beans
3 - 4 Tbsp peanuts - toasted and ground
2 tsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
3 -4 green chillies (I used Serrano peppers.)
Pinch of asafoetida
Few curry leaves
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
 2- 3 Tbsp tamarind juice or to taste
Jaggery to taste
Salt to taste

Method:
* Cook chori beans until soft adding plenty of water in a pressure cooker. Once the valve pressure is gone, remove the beans and drain the water used to cook. Wash the beans thoroughly. If you prefer a gravy, 1/4 of the cooked beans can be pureed.
* Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves and asafoetida. When mustard seeds start to pop, add green chillies and turmeric powder. Fry for about 30 seconds.
* Then add the cooked beans (and puree if using), peanut powder, jaggery, salt and tamarind. Add water if needed, to bring it to a desired consistency. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Lower the heat, simmer for a couple of minutes more and turn off the stove.


For those of you who missed any of my posts in this marathon, here is a recap.

8 comments:

  1. This is the next dish I was going to try with cow peas.. Dish looks delicious. Lovely clicks.
    It was fun running the marathon with you Suma. Waiting for the next one.

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  2. Pulusu with cowpeas...yummy.

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  3. I observed that Raghavan Iyer uses peanuts in most of the recipes. This one sounds interesting.

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  4. Hi Suma,
    Nice recipe and the pics look tempting..
    Nice running the marathon with you..
    Happy Blogging
    Rujuta

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  5. Looks very tempting, apt with rice

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  6. Interesting recipe with cowpeas...No coconut and liked the use of peanut in it.

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  7. Very interesting one Suma, Amma makes this similar with the peanut powder, sans jaggary..your bowl is so inviting..It was fun doing the BM with you as always!..hoping to see you on the next soon..:)

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