Palakura Pappu /Spinach Dal

A healthy way to consume green leafy vegetables  is to pressure-cook the leafy veggies with toor dal. The recipe is to combine all the ingredients below and  pressure cook with 2 cups of water and garnish it with popu/tadka.

Ingredients:

• One bunch of Spinach, washed and cut into pieces
• One cup of Toor dal (Kandi Pappu)-soaked in water for an hour
• One medium sized tomato- cut into pieces
• One medium sized onion- cut into pieces
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 6- 7 green chillies (adjust acc to spice)
• Key-lime size tamarind (Chinta pandu)
• 2 cups of water

For popu / tadka:

• 1 tsp of oil or ghee
• 1/2 tsp of each - cumin, mustard seeds, chana dal, urad dal and few pieces of curry leaves and dried red chilli pieces
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• a generous pinch of hing/Asafoetida

Procedure:

Pressure cook all the above ingredients for 3 whistles (except the ones for the popu)

 After pressure-cooking all of the above ingredients, add 1 tsp of salt and make a paste of spinach dal by mashing it.

For the popu/ tadka, In a saucepan, add one tsp of oil or ghee and lightly fry the minced garlic, urad dal, chana dal, cumin and mustard seeds, red chilli pieces and curry leaves and hing.

Add the popu to the spinach dal combine them together. Keep the dal covered till serving time.

 Serve the dal with steaming rice or with chapati/roti.