For other Navaratri Festival Recipes click here

Navarathri is upon us. “Nava” in Sanskrit means Nine and Rathri means night which obviously denotes the fact that this festival is celebrated for 9 whole days. The highlight of this festival is the arrangement of different idols on step arrangement called as “Golu” ( see how it looks here ). Another highlight is the different varieties of Sundal that is made during these days. One different sundal for 9 different days. Sundal is nothing but a simple South Indian salad made with different legumes like White chickpeas, black chickpeas ( generally termed as Kadalai Sundal ), butter beans (termed as “Mochakottai sundal” ), dried peas (termed as Pattani sundal ) and many more.

All the ones that I have mentioned follows the same procedure as this, hence all you have to do is to change the legume keeping the process and the rest of the ingredients same. You have 4 different Sundal recipes already. We will discuss for the remaining 5 days later Another place where these Sundals play a very important role than during this festival is on the South Indian beaches. Just take a gander on the coastline of the Madras city and you will see vendors everywhere like ants on the sands, selling these sundals calling out along with the legume it is made of. The smells, the aroma, watching the waves while eating these sundals wrapped in newspaper cones are some unforgettable memories! And before I get lost in reminiscing those, lets go into this simple recipe shall we?

The longer you soak your chickpeas, the faster is the cooking process. Although I usually recommend pressure cooking legumes for more nutrition retention and speed of cooking, here it works great for me when cooked on a stove top. The reason being, the texture of the chickpeas should be just right. Not too soft, not too raw. It should have a bite to it. Sometimes cooking in pressure cooking, you might not be get that perfect texture.

If soaked overnight ( or even longer), the cooking time on the stove top to get that right bite is only about 10 min ( certainly not more than 15min). It took me almost 10min on high heat to bring that correct texture I wanted. What you got to do, is to drain the soaked chickpeas, place it on a skillet, add 1-1/2 cups of water, bring it to high boil and let cook. In the middle add some salt to the water. Take one and bite to see if it soft enough yet retains the bite.

Drain the cooking water. You can also use it for stock later.

In the same skillet, add little oil – about 1/4 tsp oil should do – add the mustard seeds. Once it starts popping, add the black gram and red chillies. Give it a stir until the lentil starts turning reddish brown.

Add the cooked chickpeas. Give it a toss.

Add the coconut – cook for another 1-2 minutes and serve warm.

Low fat, protein rich, simple to make and uses very minimal ingredients.

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