A vegetarian food blog with unique and interesting recipes from all over the world mainly focused on South Indian Cuisine.
An empty fridge without veggies? Fret not – try these delicious garbanzo beans stir fry instead of dry vegetable curry. A perfect side for your rice and a perfect mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack. This garbanzo beans sundal is an easy-to-make stir-fry which is full of vitamins and proteins. Check out the video recipe and how I served this along with the tomato rice.
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Are you looking for a healthy snack/salad/chaat to curb that pesky hunger pangs? Can a street food be a solution? Yes, if it’s this delicious, no oil and crunchy beach style boiled peanut sundal with veggies. Check out how to prepare this yummylicious beach style peanut sundal or verkadalai sundal recipe with step-wise pictures.
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As karthigai deepam is right around the corner, I thought of sharing some of the neivediyam (offering to God) or prasadam recipes. Last year I posted the Pori Urundai recipe and I explained about the festival in the same post. Today I am going to share one of the simplest neivediyam. It’s the kadalai paruppu or the channa dal or the Bengal gram dal sundal. Sundal is nothing but legume stir fry. Sundals are not meant only for Navratri, be it any festival, sundals are one of the easiest recipes to prepare.
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I wish a very Happy Navratri to all my readers. I cannot skip from posting a sundal recipe during Navratri time. Today I am sharing a semi-homemade sundal recipe prepared with canned beans. Here comes the tri color and tri beans (Red Kidney beans, Cannellini beans, Black beans) sundal that can be prepared in a jiffy especially during weekdays as there is no soaking and pressure cooking involved. And oh yeah, if you forget to soak the beans for sundal, this is your best bet. This is such a healthy and protein rich snack that can be prepared all year round irrespective of the festivities.
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I cannot think navratri without Sundals. These sundals brings me back the fond memories of navratris in periyakulam. I used go invite our neighbors and friends for thamboolam and this will be my standard dialogue – “Enga veetla golu vachu eruka, vethala paaku vangika vaango” (meaning we have kept golu come over for prasadam and thamboolam) and I have couple of standard songs to sing whenever some one asks me to sing. Sri mann Narayana, Thajanmendru Kenchikirom were my standard songs and our friends and neighbors started asking me to sing different songs and they started to tell my music teacher that I am not singing any other songs except these two. Now do I have an option? Nostalgic moments. :-) In this inviting process, I collect sundals also and by the time I reach home I would have collected at least 1/2 kg of different varieties of sundal. I wanted to post some sundal recipes and when I went through my archived posts I realized I haven’t posted kothukadadalai or garbanzo beans sundal.
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Today I am sharing one of my favorite sundal recipe. It is the Manga – Thenga Pattani Sundal or Peas Sundal with raw mango and grated coconut. This sundal is a blend of all flavors. I prepared it with frozen peas, so no soaking no pressure cooking. If you forget to soak legumes or if time is pressing, this sundal is the best bet.
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Navratri always calls for different varieties of sundal. Earlier I posted a sweet sundal, and now it’s the time for savory one and that too with my favorite bean – black eyed peas. I know garbanzo beans is the king of all sundals, but before posting that I would like to post my personal favorite. This is called as Karamani Sundal in Tamil.
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Earlier cross posted this here
It’s the month of Navratri. This is one unique festival which is celebrated by all the states in India in their own way. No matter how it is celebrated, it’s filled with food and fun. In south,Navratri means Golu and Golu means sundal(cooked beans and legumes). Golu is the display of dolls mostly the god and goddess from hindu mythology. But now-a-days you can see other doll sets too including cricket set, marriage set and even cartoon characters. I am not able to find the exact reason behind keeping golu. Some say its to invoke gods and goddess at our home while some say Golu was to encourage the clay art. But its a fun filling event setting up the golu steps and arranging the dolls. The golu steps should be in odd numbers. The best ever golu display that I have seen is the Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple’s golu.
Navratri/Golu is one of my favorite festival. Remembering those childhood days, where I used to wear silk lehenga (pattu pavaadai) and invite others to our house Golu and bring back loads of prasadam. I am not a sweet person. So this festival is perfect for me where the prasadams are sundal(cooked legumes) which are the savory ones. 
I started loving saraswathi pooja especially after 9th grade. As a good kid, I will go arrange my physics, chemistry and maths book for saraswati pooja two days before itself, so that no one would ask me to study. 
And then there is mulaipaari which is very common in rural areas of Tamil Nadu. Mulaipari is navadhanyam (9 grains) grown in a pot/unique vessel. They will be kept in temple and daily women sing kummi and songs by coming around it. They also do kolattam which is similar to dandiya daily. And on the last day they carry the Mulaipari to nearby river or pond and dissolve it there.
I try to celebrate and follow pretty much all the festivals in US, but I never miss golu for sure. It’s a great family activity to arrange the golu with kiddo and a good chance to explain our customs and rituals. Inviting others and visiting others adds more fun and joy. And of course we do attend dandiya even if the mulaipaari is missing.
This is my small golu display for this year.
As I mentioned before, Golu means sundal. So I cannot finish the post without posting the sundal recipe. Here is one sweet recipe and one savory recipe. It’s not only a festival recipe, but also a great snack anytime.
Ingredients:
And thats it yummy sweet sundal is ready.
Kollu or Horsegram is one among the healthy grains / lentils family. As I mentioned in my rasam post it is very common ingredient in my native place. Kollu chutney / Thuvaiyal, Rasam, this sundal and just roasted kollu are very common recipes. Basically whenever I prepare kollu rasam, I make this sundal and vice versa. For the rasam you need just a handful of boiled horse gram but at least 2 cups of boiled horse gram water. So I always soak more horse gram and prepare these two recipes together.
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