Kongu cuisine is very tasty and different. The spices used are freshly ground to make the dish flavoured and tasty. More millets and lentils are used in Kongu dishes to make it nutritious for healthy living. You can also find usage of dry coconut and groundnut more, which gives different taste to Kongu food.
Kollu in Tamil is known as ‘horse gram’ in English. Kollu is a variety of bean not much popular, but very good for health. In Ayurveda, kollu plays a vital role. It has some medicinal value. It is believed that eating kollu makes our body strong and kollu is good in treating stones, menstrual problems and obesity. Kollu is good in curing cold and cough, as eating this keep our body warm. Good to eat kollu in winter.
Here I tried a Kongu dish called ‘kollu masiyal’.
Serves: 6
Cooking time: 45 minutes approximately
Ingredients
- Kollu or horse gram – 2 cups
- Onion – 1 no
- Tomato – 1 no
- Turmeric – pinch
- Tamarind – small marble size soaked and juice extracted (adjust according to your taste)
- Coriander leaves – few for garnishing
- Fry and grind
- Coriander seeds – 1 table spoon
- Cumin seeds – 1 tea spoon
- Red chilli – 4 no
- Garlic – 4 cloves
- Few pieces of onion
- For seasoning
- Mustard – ½ tea spoon
- Urad dal – ½ tea spoon
- Curry leaves – few
- Asafetida – pinch
- Oil – 1 table spoon
Method
Step 1
- Soak kollu over night as it takes more time to cook; wash kollu and put it in a pressure cooker with 5 cups of water; add turmeric, few drops of oil and pressure cook for 4 to 5 whistle; now kollu would be in fully cooked state and can be mashed easily by hand.
Step 2
- In the mean time, chop onion and tomato; fry the items for grinding and grind with little water; drain water from the boiled kollu and mash it partially; do not throw drained water.
Step 3
- Heat a pan with oil, do the seasoning; add cut onions, fry till soft; add tomato and fry till soft and mashed.
- Now add mashed kollu, ground paste, tamarind juice, salt and mix well; bring to boil and cook for 2 minutes; adjust consistency by adding drained boiled kollu water as required.
- Kollu masiyal is ready; serve with Rice or Chapatti or Ragi kali.
Tips
- The left over water drained from boiled kollu can be used to prepare tasty kollu flavoured Rasam.
This post is part of the event RCI – Kongunadu Vegetarian Cuisine organised by Priya’s Easy N Tasty Recipes.
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