Sprout your beans at home to make this incredibly delicious vegan Goan Mung Bean Gaathi curry with flavours of coconut and curry leaves. Just a handful of warming spices and mild heat from fresh green chilli gives this dish its characteristic gentle flavours. It really allows the sprouts to shine.
This Goan mung bean gaathi is such an underrated dish when you hear of Goan cooking. It is made especially during festive occasions like Ganesh Chaturthi. A completely vegan dish that has tons of flavour without use of any aliums (no onion/garlic) is quite rare to find.
HOW TO SPROUT YOUR MUNG BEANS
DAY 1 – Add a cup of whole dry green mung in a strainer and wash thoroughly. In a glass jar (of about 1 litre capacity), add the washed beans and twice the water (2 cups). Cover with a damp paper towel. Leave in a cool dark place in your kitchen overnight (at least 8 hours).
DAY 2 – At this time, your mung beans should have plumped up significantly. Check the amount of water left ( if any). Drain it out. Add fresh water and drain again. This extra step gives you a clean taste and gets rid of any impurities that might have remained. Add water about a quarter of the way to the total mung beans volume ( or the same amount that was there when you started). Leave it covered with a damp towel.
DAY 3/4 – On these days and based on the weather where you are ( the colder the temperature, the longer it takes for the mung beans to sprout), you’ll see pretty much all the water will have been absorbed and you’ll see sprouting activity. About 2-3 times in a day I like to just shake the jar to dislodge the beans and give them some room. When enough of them sprout (see below image) transfer to a large bowl, wash, drain and dry as best as you can. If not using straight away, transfer to a container with a dry paper towel and use within 3-4 days.
A cup of dry mung typically yields about 3 cups of sprouts. While this recipe uses two cups of sprouts, I use the remaining for tossing into salads. They taste amazing raw!
When making this curry, don’t overcook the star ingredient – you want the mung beans to be tender but not mushy. The heat from the chilli should be mild so the creaminess of the coconut really shines. The final tempering with coconut oil gives it the aroma that is typical of this dish.
This Goan Mung Bean curry tastes best with Puris (a deep fried bread). But if you’re not looking to indulge, you could enjoy this with some steamed rice ( with a side of nice puckering mango pickle like this one), or with rotis/flatbreads. You can even keep it a bit soupy and enjoy on its own.
Goan Green Mung Bean Gaathi
Ingredients
- 2 cups Green Mung Bean Sprouts
- 2 Green Chillies (slit in the middle)
- 1 cup Fresh Grated coconut (loosely packed)
- ½ tsp Tamarind paste
- ¼ tsp Turmeric Powder
- 1 Dry Red Chilli
- 1½ tsp Coriander seeds
- 10 Black Peppercorns
- 4 Cloves
- ½ tsp Black Mustard Seeds
- 1/4 tsp Asafoetida (heeng)
- 10-12 Curry Leaves
- 1 tbsp Coconut Oil
- Water (as required)
- 1 tbsp Jaggery/Brown Sugar (adjust to balance)
- Salt (to taste)
Instructions
- Soak your green mung sprouts in a large bowl of cold water and massage them gently. This is done to gently coax out any loose skins on the sprouts which would easily dislodge into the final curry. Drain out all the liquid and loose skins, repeat upto 2-3 times as necessary.
- In a pot, add the sprouts, the green chilles and salt to season and about 2.5-3 cups water and bring to a boil. Then keep it on a low simmer until the raw taste of the sprouts is gone and they are tender with some bite to it.
- In a pan, dry toast the coriander seeds, cloves, whole red chilli and peppercorns until fragrant. Do this on a low flame so as to not burn any spices. Set aside to cool slightly.
- Blend together the fresh grated coconut, tamarind, turmeric powder, toasted spices along with just enough water to get a completely smooth paste.
- Drain some of the excess water in your cooking sprouts if you feel like its more than you need. I find it best to drain and set aside 70% of the liquid, add the coconut paste and then adjust with as much drained liquid as you'd like to get the consistency in sauce. Adding the sprout cooking liquid helps ensure you don't dilute the flavour of the curry.
- Once the curry has come to a light boil, add the jaggery and taste for balance ( tamarind – jaggery-salt) and adjust accordingly. This is mild flavoured sauce which shouldn't really have any one flavour too pronounced so you can feel the real taste of the green mung beans.
- For the tempering – In a small pan, heat the coconut oil, add the mustard seeds. When they pop, add the curry leaves and asafoetida (heeng) and pour into the curry. Stir and turn off the heat. Don't garnish with coriander leaves – they tend to distract.
- Best served warm with roti, rice or puris (deep fried bread). It can also be enjoyed as is like a soup.
For other delicious recipes from the blog, click here. If you make this recipe and love it, let me know in the comments below. When sharing on Instagram, tag me @rupalbhatikar.
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