Healthy,Spicy,Junky: Misal

My apologies to everyone who visited this space looking for updates and particularly to friends who got tired of my "khandvi pics staring back at them":) you know who you are, don't you...

It has been more than a month since I wrote last so have been deliberating a lot on what to post. At first I thought of celebrating with some nice, fried thinggies, but just wasn't able to get the kadhai up, but then plain healthy stuff was not particularly appealing in the cool, rainy Singapore right now, so here's my compromise: healthy-junk food, an oxymoron as someone rightly calls it, and a close second favourite breakfast, after poha for a lot of my marathi friends.

The recipe I used is one I noted down years ago from the magazine "Upper Crust", which ran an article on Phadtare misal centre in Kolhapur.

Now misal is a bit of an involved 'fast food', as in you can't just decide to make Misal on a whim..the moth beans need to be sprouted, or soaked overnight/few hours at the very least. With sprouts on hand, putting misal together is a breeze.On with the recipe now:

Ingredients

1 cup moth beans (matki), soaked and sprouted

1 onion, finely chopped

2 Tomatoes, chopped

1 boiled potato ( I usually skip it)

2 tsp garlic-ginger paste

1/2 tsp each : Mustard and Cumin seeds

1 tsp Coriander powder

1/2 tsp goda or garam masala powder

White bread (I use the sasta, local type for authentic taste!)

Farsan/Namkeen of your choice

Oil , salt and chili powder to taste

Lemon, Cilantro and chopped onion for garnishing

Method

If you intend to sprout the beans, refer nupur or meera's excellent notes on the subject. If not then soak for a few hours and boil till slightly soft but not falling apart or mushy.

Usal

Fry one tsp ginger-garlic paste in oil until it turns reddish brown. Add onions and fry them , followed by tomato and fry till you get a nice paste which leaves a little oil on the side.Now add turmeric, salt, coriander powder and mix. (Optional:one some red chilli powder to the above)

Now add the sprouted moth/matki and the boiled potato if using . Pour some water ( say, 1 cup or so) and let it boil for 10 to 15 minutes on low flame till the liquid mostly dries up.
Katt:

Heat oil and fry the remaining ginger-garlic paste, add onions and cook till nicely fried. Now, add as much red chilli powder you'd care to eat. Add some coriander powder or dhana-jeera powder, turmeric powder, goda/garam masala powder and salt.Add tomatoes to this mixture and fry it until it forms a paste ( you can add tomato puree also.)
Add around 1.5 to 2 cups of water into the whole mixture and boil till it cooks through. The katt usually has a thin, soupy consistency.
Assembling:

Take the usal in a bowl. Add some farsan/namkeen to it. Put some kat on the top of that. Garnish with onion, cilantro, and some more farsaan, and sprinlkle little lemon juice if you like. Eat quickly before the farsaan gets too soggy with slices of plain, untoasted bread.

Also check out these authentic, traditional, misal posts, and variations