mung-sprouts « WordPress.com Tag Feed

A spoonful of sprouts

Corbet — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:39:53 +0000

It's a wet, grey day outside, and rather cool and dark inside. It might seem bleak if it weren't harvest day. Yep, today my wee little sprouts became food, and their crisp greenness offered a nice reminder that spring's lying just beneath that melting snow out there.

The mung beans went into cilantro tabbouleh. Even though I've been nibbling those for days and throwing some in everything I've cooked, I still had a good two loose cups for the salad. Not bad considering I started with just two tablespoons of seed! They turned out a little bitter, apparently because I didn't hide them away in the dark while they were sprouting. That's okay, though -- I still found them tasty, and the flavour went well with the salad, so it all worked out well.

The broccoli sprouts I used as a garnish. They're light and fluffy compared to the mung sprouts, and taste like, well, little fiery broccoli bursts. Go figure. I didn't touch them until today, and what you see in the photos is the entire 'crop' -- a single spoonful! From an entire seed pack! (I'm not sure how much the packet contained, but definitely less than 2 T.) Must see if I can find a bulk source of seed so that I can sprout more, because otherwise I just won't be able to grow enough.

Cilantro tabbouleh

1/2 cup bulgur
1/2 cup boiling water
1/4+ cup fresh lemon juice
2 T oil
1 T nutritional yeast
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 or 2 campari tomatoes, chopped small (or use one bigger one)
2 cups sprouts
salt & pepper (to taste)

How to:

Boil your water, then pour over the bulgur. Add lemon juice, cover, and let sit for 20 to 30 minutes.
Mix in everything except the sprouts and stir well. Refrigerate overnight.
If your sprouts are really long, chop or break them up a bit. Stir into the tabbouleh.
Taste and adjust seasonings with more lemon juice, salt, pepper, etc.

I think this would work particularly well with large, barely-sprouted mungs.

Vegetable Hot and Sour Soup.

homecooked — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:46:28 +0000

This was my favourite soup when I used to order Chinese in India.I think Indian Chinese tastes the best and I dont really like the Chinese fare available in the US. The only exception to that rule is P F Changs.I love going there and sampling the spicy dishes on the menu.In Bombay there are many red Chinese carts serving delicious fried rice,manchurians,spring rolls and the works.It is quite affordable and there are many Chinese restaurants that have opened up recently.My most favourite was Uncle's Kitchen in Malad. I must have tasted almost everything on their menu and each and every dish is lip smacking delicious. Since I hardly enjoy Chinese food here, I thought I would give this soup a try.I had some vegetables in the pantry and bought a packet of mung sprouts and mushrooms from the grocery store as I wanted to make it all the more healthy. The mung sprouts were a surprise delight as they were quite crunchy inspite of all the saute'ing and the boiling. The results were delicious and the soup was finished in no time !!!

Ingredients

1 cup carrots diced
1/2 cup beans chopped
1 cup mushrooms sliced
1 cup mung sprouts
1/4 cup green capsicum diced
2 to 3 spring onions/scallions chopped
1 onion finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/2 inch piece of ginger grated
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp Louisiana hot sauce (or any other preferred hot sauce)
1 to 2 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp cornflour
4 cups vegetable stock
1/4 tsp ground pepper
salt to taste
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp oil

Method:

Heat oil.Add the onions ,garlic and ginger.Saute till onions are transparent

Add in all the vegetables except spring onions/scallions and saute for about 5 minutes on a medium flame.

Then add the soy sauce and hot sauce and stir it for about 2 minutes

Add about 3 and half cups of vegetable stock and boil it till the vegetables are almost done.

Then add the cornflour to the remaining 1/2 cup of vegetable stock and dissolve it.

Add this to the soup alongwith vinegar and ground pepper.Check for salt.Add in the sugar.

Stir it and bring to a boil.Add the chopped scallions and remove from flame after a couple of minutes.

Serve hot.

PS:I am sending this to the "No croutons required" event at Lisa's Kitchen.

I am also sending this to Bindiya for her "Chinese Food" event.

Kamma Sutra

schitrapu — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:56:49 +0000

In my experience, a salad needs atleast four things to come together (everything else is a pleasant extra). Something tart, something crunchy, something flavorful and something which in Telugu we call “kamma”, it translates roughly to ‘bland’ in English. “Kamma” is the taste that you experience with fresh yoghurt, or ghee, and maybe even oil. It’s commonly associated with dairy products. In a salad, this taste helps to tone down the tartness of lime and vinegar. I find the taste of an avocado is quite close to that. And that’s good news for those of us who are trying to find acceptable substitutes for dairy and oil. So here’s my basic mung sprout salad with avocado. The mung sprouts and cucumber are the crunchy part, the tomato and lime bring the tart taste, the cilantro adds flavor and the avocado makes it kamma. And the sesame seeds, they’re in there for the calcium.

1 cup mung sprouts

1 chopped tomato

½ cup chopped cucumber

Juice of ½ a lime

Coriander powder in place of cilantro

½ a chopped avocado

1 tsp sesame seeds

Toss them all together and eat. You can add salt if you absolutely can’t do without it.