Uncle Bill's Mung Bean Curry

William (Uncle Bill) Anatooskin's Note:

A very good tasting and a medium spicy East Indian dish. Serve along with your main meal.

• Total Time: 8 hrs 27 mins
• Prep Time: 8 hrs
• Cook Time: 27 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 cup mung beans (soaked overnight)
• 2 teaspoons canola oil or 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ teaspoon black mustard seeds
• ¼ teaspoon whole cumin seed
• ¼ teaspoon turmeric
• ¾ cup crushed tomatoes , include liquid if using canned tomatoes (fresh or canned)
• 1 garlic clove , crushed
• ½ teaspoon freshly grated gingerroot
• ½ teaspoon ground coriander
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ¼ teaspoon granulated sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups water
• ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Directions:

1. In a medium size saucepan, measure mung beans, cover with water, cover saucepan and let beans soak overnight.
2. To a large frying pan, add oil and bring to high heat.
3. In a small mixing bowl, mix together cumin seeds, mustard seeds and turmeric. Add to the frying pan, cover immediately and fry quickly shaking the frying pan until seeds begin to pop; about 1 minute.
4. To the frying pan, add crushed tomatoes, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, sugar, and salt and cook until mixture bubbles; about 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Drain mung beans, rinse saucepan and return mung beans to the same saucepan.
6. Add 2 cups of water, bring to boil, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes or until beans are tender.
7. Drain mung beans and add to the mixture in the frying pan.
8. Add cilantro and stir to mix well.
9. Serve immediately.
10. You can substitute and use red kidney beans, black eyed beans or Garbanzo beans.
11. If using canned beans, you do not need to soak them overnight.

Reviews

[Charishma_Ramchandani]

This is REALLY GOOD, Uncle Bill! I made this for lunch this afternoon using green lentils that I'd soaked last night. I used 4 tomatoes(2 small and 2 medium sized), 1 1/4 tsps. salt, 2 1/2 cups water, plus all the other ingredients in the same quantities as mentioned. I garnished the curry with fresh corriander leaves(chopped). The only additional thing I did was to boil the lentils in water this morning before adding them to the masala(i.e., after step 4, I proceeded with adding the "boiled and drained" lentils and then moved on to step 6 and onwards..)I am so glad to find a low-cal curry, that too, because dad and me specially love green lentils! Dad was SO HAPPY with this curry, he's told me never again to prepare green lentils like we used to UPTIL NOW! Now on, we will be making green lentils this way! I enjoyed this with lightly toasted white bread(as I LOVE bread absolutely). Mom and dad enjoyed this with hot rotis and white Basmati rice with a dollop of chilled plain yogurt on top. Next time, I'll be squeezing a bit of lemon juice over the curry before having it. THANK YOU SO MUCH, for posting this wonderful recipe! This will be a regular on our table.

[jewelsf]

This curry was rather bland - I would not use "medium spicy" to describe it at all. Also, the instructions are not easy to follow. The terms "frying pan" and "saucepan" seem to be used interchangably, so that it is not clear if the mung beans should be cooked in the same pan as the other ingredients or separately. In addition the instructions do not indicate when the salt should be added.

[lolsuz]

This is really good! I followed the directions to the letter but I wanted to skip soaking the beans so I did my cooking in my pressure cooker. The beans were PERFECT after being brought up to steam, cooking under pressure for ten minutes, then allowing the pot to cool before opening. The liquid ratio on this is perfect, too; mine looked just like the picture. I read Dominique's comment about adding yogurt and garnished with it- delicious! Thanks for sharing, Uncle Bill!