Friday 8 April 2011

Kollu Podi (Horsegram Powder)


Kollu Podi (Horsegram Powder)


Some of you may already be familiar with ‘paruppu podi’ (lentil powder) typically made with toor dal aka pigeon peas. It is one of the recipes I grew up with and afterall these years I was happy to give another lentil an opportunity. The recipe is very similar to the traditional one I already posted however I hope to give some options here. I realised that not all the readers of this blog will enjoy rice with ghee and lentil powder but horsegram is good for health that I would want all my readers to benefit from it. Brown lentil aka horsegram is well known for its ability to help weight loss. It increases the metabolic rate of the body and hence helps burn calories. It is also said to help regularise menstrual cycles in women and also get rid of stones like in the kidney. It is also said to give one plenty of energy and some even joke that it is why it is ‘horse’ gram. If you do not like mixing the powder with rice and eating, you could add heaped spoons of this powder to soup or rasam. It also helps soup thicken and if you do not like the heat from the chillies, cut it out and roast and grind just the horsegram. You could also add the horsegram powder to boiled water to make it like porridge, something like horlicks. Here is the recipe...

½ cup horsegram
3-4 dry red chillies
¼ teaspoon asafoetida
Salt to taste
Few drops of cooking oil

Heat very little oil in a skillet and add the horsegram, chillies and asafoetida and roast. You will know you have roasted enough when the horsegram begins to change colour and also becomes smaller in size.

Cool and grind along with required amount of salt. Cool and store in an airtight box.

As I said earlier, you could roast horsegram alone, cool and grind depending on how ou intend to use it.

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