Mung Beans

Seakay

Rose Elliot advices that mung beans need 20-30 minutes cooking when soaked, or 30-40 minutes cooking when unsoaked.
Soaking can be 4-6 hours (or overnight) in cold water, or 45-60 minutes hot soak (which involved putting the beans into a pan of cold water, bringing it to the boil, boiling vigorously for 2-3 minutes, removing from the heat and leaving, covered, for 45-60 minutes.)
Beans should be rinsed after soaking, whichever method is used.

Seakay

Serves 4
Ingredients:
350g mung beans (dried weight)
4 tablespoons oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 large clove garlic, crushed
11/2 teaspoons ground cumin
11/2 teaspoons tumeric
1/4-1/2 teaspoon chili powder
salt and pepper

Method:
Soak, drain and rinse the beans, cover them with cold water and cook until tender (20-30 minutes). Drain off any extra water. (DO NOT add salt to the cooking water, it toughens the beans' skins).
Heat the oil in a medium sized saucepan and fry the onion and garlic for 10 minutes; add the cumin, tumeric and chili powder and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
Stir in the drained mung beans and season well with salt and pepper. Cook the mixture over a low heat, stirring all the time, until everything is well blended and piping hot.

Seakay

http://www.sproutpeople.com/seed/mung.html

Tashja

Thank you Larmy and Seakay

Will givethis a go !!!

T xx

larmy16

Here is my general curry sauce which I use with chick peas a lot. I have it with brown basmati and salad (no Naan or poppadums as I am slimming!)

1 tbs oil (as much as you like if weight not an issue)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
half tsp turmeric
1 tin tomatoes chopped
about quarter pint of water with a tsp marmite (this is my invention and is optional)
green chilli (depends how hot you like it)(best remove seeds)
garlic (about three cloves) grated or minced
about one inch ginger fresh - grated or minced
1 medium chopped onion
1 tbs garam masala
fresh coriander to taste.

First off I blend the onions with garlic, chilli and ginger as I dont like big onion bits!
Heat oil, add mustard and cumin seeds and allow to cook a minute or so. Add the turmeric and fry adding a little water if its too dry. Add the blended mix of onions etc and continue cooking adding water if necessary.

Add the tomatoes and as I said I add about 1/4 pint water with a tsp marmite.

Cook about ten minutes. Oh yes add your chick peas or mung beans. Cook about half hour. Towards end of cooking time add the garam masala. Then add the coriander to taste (I like lots).

Because this is a fairly low fat version, I then allow myself a little cream which really transforms the curry from ordinary.

The recipe is adapted from An Indian Housewife's Cook book/Recipe book.

Adding a few cloves to your cooking rice gives it a nice aroma and flavour.

I think thats it. Very simple and most important - very cheap!!:)

This is a great store cupboard recipe. I buy the fresh coriander when its reduced and bung it in the freezer and then snip off as much as I like with scissors. It lasts ages.

krishna

You can get whole mung beans (green on outside) which can be cooked without presoaking, but actually all pulses are better presoaked. You can also get split mung beans (mung dal) without the green husk. They can be soaked for a few hours and eaten as is, or can be cooked for about 20 mins. If eaten without cooking, they will of course be firm/slightly crunchy, but taste great with a bit of lime or lemon juice and some dessicated coconut (plus a little bit of chilli powder, or better still fresh green chilli, if you like that kind of thing). They are the quickest of all pulses to cook.

Bismarck

hi,

Mrs Bismarck has got ahead of the game and soaked some mung beans overnight...

Can you suggest any recipes that we will enjoy and the kids will try without prejudging it as "yeuck..."

We like indian/chinese and are vegetarian...

Any thoughts welcome...
thanks

Rowan9

I used to make them into a meatless shepherd's pie - maybe google a recipe for that? Really good for you!! (mung beans, not googling)
w

ed to add:
I have been so tempted by the thought of mung beans, thanks to your post, that I've just added a tin of them to my veggie pasta bake - good timing - thanks very much as that's lots of added protein and fibre for me and means there will be plenty left overs for tomorrow

debbym

If you have just used tap water I would be tempted to reserve some and sprout your won beansprouts (one tablespoon of beans would fill a whole jar though)

chika

I would srout them too - fab stir fries and they always taste better in the smugness that you have "made" your own beansprouts!