pulse/Lentil/ Grains

                         Pulses/Lentils/Grains

                           

Pulses

Introduction

GRAIN VERSES PULSES

Pulses : Toor, moong, urad and chana. First of all none of this is a lentil.  Pulses (the term for seeds) In the hulled, split versions, they look and behave very much like lentils, and that's why they are so often mis-tagged. So that's what separates a pulse from a lentil.

                                                   "None of my favorite dal is a lentil"

Pectin, which makes up 15% to 30% of the fiber in pulses, start dissolving only around 88 degrees Celsius. Which means one must either use a pressure cooker or keep the pot on the boil for dal to soften.

The differences extend to their texture after cooking. Cooked dal is often whisked while hot. The seeds, swollen with water, respond to the force of the whisking by bursting wide open, spilling their contents into the liquid, and absorbing its flavours too.

Not all pulses react the same way to heat, because they vary widely in protein, fibre and carbohydrate content. That's part of what makes them so interesting.

In traditional Indian recipes, it's clear how our ancestors recognized different pulses characteristics and capitalised on them, centuries ago.

Pulses come from family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. They are both seeds that carry an embryo,, along with the lunchbox the mother plant packed for the embryo. Look closer and one sees that the lunch-boxes are quite different. Pulses on average contain far less starch and a two or three times more protein than the grain do. They also contain more fibre. While this makes them a much healthier ingredient. It also means they must be cooked much longer before we can eat them. Here's why.

Moong Dal / Green Gram Dal

Moong is the thing we turn to when seeking comfort ; it's the dal of soft khichdi, sick days, and childhood. It is less smooth than my favorite toor dal, but far easier to process. Here's why :

Moong dal is the easiest to digest of all our beans and pulses because it has very low levels of non digestible carbohydrates (such as verbascose,stachyose and raffinose). The oligosaccharides- present in beans, pulses and lentils-produce flatus because humans lacks the enzyme to digest these sugars. They instead pass through the  stomach unaffected and are fermented by intestinal microbes, forming gasses in the process.

But the naturally  low levels of oligosaccharides in moong is why it is one of the first solid foods introduced to children in India. And why moong dal khichdi is what we seek out when the stomach is upset or when one is recovering or convalescing from any kind of illness. It's why moong was the dal in the comfort food khichdi of our childhood.

Moong & Toor 1:1

Toor Dal / Pigeon Pea / Aarhar Dal

Take Toor dal for instance, it is a seed of pigeon pea, a drought resistant crop with very deep tap roots. In Malawi, the largest producer of this pulse in Africa, it is called 'desperation food'  and 90% is exported (with a major buyer being India), because the local cuisine there does not include recipes that make it palatable.

Perhaps, traditionally, the region did not have the plentiful water required to treat it correctly; and toor must be treated right. if one has to enjoy it.

The pigeon pea seed coat  is extremely tough, even when compared with others pulses. It is bound firmly to the cotyledons within by gums and mucilage. In traditional south Indian recipes toor dal is soaked in water, coated with red earth, and sun dried, to loosen the coat; then dehulled using a manual grinder. This reduce cooking time  considerably, which was vital because fuel was scarce. What Toor offers in exchange is a bounty of proteins. This is one reason it is so highly prized in India.

If Toor is well concealed treasure, moong is a nostalgia ride, chana is designed to be versatile. And Urad has a secret super power. 

Toor dal and Channa dal have some of the highest levels of oligosaccharides of all dals. Soaking, fermenting and cooking all help reduce the level of these harmless but discomfort causing sugars.

 

Lentils

Lentils in their unhulled state, must have a double  convex shape (the word has the same latin root, in fact as ("lens").

Masoor Dal / Malka Masoor or dhuli masoor is a lentil ; Beluga lentils are too (so named because they look just like black caviar). None of the big four has double convex shape .. They can instead be called legumes (the term for the entire plant) or more accurately. 

Whole masoor dal

No pre soaking needed.Make it extra for the next day, coz, leftover tastes amazing! 

To begin with, clean and rinse the whole masoor well and set it aside.Then, add cumin seeds and curry leaves, sauté for few seconds/ Add chopped onion and sauté until onion are soft (for about 2 minutes). Next, add ginger and garlic paste, green chilies and sauté for another 30 seconds to remove the raw smell. Now, Add finely chopped tomatoes, turmeric, ground coriander and red chilli powder. Cook for 2 minutes or until tomato softens, add whole masoor, garam masala powder, dry mango powder (optional) and salt, mix well. Add 2.5 to 3 cups of water and give it a stir. (Here you can add vegetable stock /Close the pot and seal the lid. Pressure cook the dal on 'High' for 15 minutes. (It should take around 7-8 minutes to come to pressure. Once the cooking cycle is complete, let the pressure release naturally. Open the pot, give a nice stir to the dal, add lemon juice and mix. At this point you can add some ghee and a bit Kasuri Methi here if you want to. Dish out, garnish with chopped cilantro and serve hot with rice, salad and poppadom.

Channa Dal

Channa and Toor dal have some of the highest levels of oligosaccharides of all dals. Soaking, fermenting and cooking all help reduce the level of these harmless but discomfort causing sugars.

This is a pulse packed with so much fibre that just 100 gm can make up 31% to 67% of the daily fibre required for a human (that requirement stands at 25 gm for women and 38 gm for men; chana dal is 12% to 17% fibre)

This high fibre content is the reason chana  holds its form more firmly than any of the other big four.Our recipes embrace this added resistance too. 

We add a handful of chana for instance, to a dish of moong, so the formers firm texture can break the monotony of the smooth moong.

The lauki chana sabji popular across the country works the same way, offering the dinner something that looks soft but has a firm bite too.

Lauki chana dal

Urad Dal

How ancient Indian recipes found a way to use each unusual charecteristic of  the pulses that grow here. Urad is a prime example. It contains a mucilage called arabinogalactan which traps gasses produced during fermentation. Somewhat like gluten does in wheat when we make bread. This special property has been used for centuries, to make soft spongy idlis without the need for any added leaveners.

There are very few ingredients in the world  that can do this . I think its amazing that we discovered this ability, in a protein rich pulse, arons before anything like a modern lab existed.

Whole Grains

Grains : Starch, the most prevalent ingredient in  grains, gelatinizes at about 68 to 78 degrees Celsius. So one can easily cook white rice on a stove top. 

Grains and (cereals) comes from the grass family Poaceae;

One could whisk grains when cooked and liquidity  but the resultant  soup would be so rich in starch that it would have a milky appearance and would congeal as it cooled.

https://natureloversindia123.blogspot.com/2023/07/pulselentil-grains.html