Ingredients
Method
- Wash the mung beans thoroughly and then soak them over night (at least 12 hrs and 24hrs if possible)
- In a pan heat ghee
- Add turmeric powder and asafoetida
- Sauté for a few seconds
- Add the beans and fresh water.
- Cook until all the beans are soft and broken up (40 – 60 min )
- Heat some ghee in a frying pan, add 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic and sauté lightly for a minute until soft but still aromatic. (optional)
- Add fresh ginger and cumin and coriander seeds and any other herbs or spices you like
- Briefly sauté.
- Add the sautéed spices plus some rock salt to the mung beans and continue to simmer for a further 2 minutes.
- Serve the soup hot with finely chopped coriander leaves or other fresh herbs. Eat with green vegetables.
Notes
- You can experiment with different flavours each time you make your soup to maintain a sense of variety.
- Adding spices at the end of the cooking process helps retain more of their flavour and therapeutic value.
- Adding salt in the beginning makes beans tougher and take longer to cook; therefore always add salt at the end.
- You can also add 1 tsp. of ghee or 1 tsp. of virgin, unrefined oil such as flax, hemp or sesame. Virgin oils should be added to food after it has cooled down a bit, as these oils are not heat stable and thus not suitable for cooking.
- Asafoetida or hing is tricky to find, best to go online (see below)
- Mung beans, asafoetida and all other spices can be bought from, for example, www.healthysupplies.co.uk or www.realfoods.co.uk.
- Original recipe thanks to Rebecca and Sascha Kriese at Ayuseva