Cherupyar (aka moong beans or green gram) thoren

                                              

Ingredients

         1.   Whole moong/mung beans – 2 cups, soak overnight

         2.   Grated coconut – ½- ¾ cups

         3.   Ginger – 1.5 inch, coarsely chopped

         4.   Garlic- 2 cloves, chopped

         5.   Green chillies – 3, chopped

         6.   Cumin seeds – 1 tspsn

         7.   Onion – ½ of medium size onion, sliced

         8.   Curry leaves - 20

         9.   To temper – 2 tbpsn oil, ¼ tspn cumin, ½ tspn mustard seeds, 2 dry chllies

Method:

        1.   Drain the soaked moon beans, and cook in around 1 cup water (this will take around 30 mins or so on low flame).

        2.    While this is being cooked. There are two ways to prepare the coconut mixture, either grind coconut, green chillies (I used only 3, and not all 4 as shown in picture), ginger, onions, approximately 15 curry leaves, and cumin seeds together or mix them with hand after finely chopping the garlic, ginger (this is a common practice). In the first method, do not grind the garlic, just finely chop it and add to ground mixture.

       3.   Once the moong beans are cooked, add the ground (or hand mixed) coconut mixture in the center, and cover it up with moon beans. Cover with lid, and let this cook at low flame for 15 mins. Be careful at how much water you add at this stage, especially if you don’t want your dish to be too “squashy”.

       4.   On the side, prepare the tadka. From step 9, heat oil, and add the cumin, mustard seeds, and dry chillies. Stir till raw smell is gone (around 1-2 minutes). Turn off heat.

      5.   Mix the moong beans in with the coconut mixture, add the remaining curry leaves, and then add the temper.

      6.   Enjoy this with rice, or kanji.