Hello there Folks 🙂
Avarekalu / Avarekai is a winter bean famous in Karnataka and Southern regions of India. It is also called hyacinth beans. It captured my interest since the day I ate it first time and I love making it for my family when it is in season. There is also an avarekalu mela(fair) that happens in Bangalore when this bean is in season to promote farmers to grow its crop. At the fair they make every possible thing using this bean – Dosas, Upma, Vadas, Sambhar etc. I am hoping I can go for this fair this year as it happens around this time 🙂 .
Nutritionally Hyacinth Beans are a great source of Protein, fibre and several B-complex vitamins. Over the past few years I have tried many South Indian recipes of this bean that I came across. I love avarekalu saaru, pulav, sambar, palya made from it. Offlate I have been slowly moving towards making some of my meals grain free or atleast gluten free. This entails utilizing beans like these in creative ways to get my carbs, protein , fiber etc. Salads with chikpea , sprouts , Black eyed peas etc. I was very interested to use Avarekai in a similar manner. Hence came up with the idea of making my favorite Hummus with Avarekai 🙂 . And I wasn’t disappointed . I actually felt there was something very cheesy about hummus made from hyacinth beans which made it very tasty. I paired this dip with homemade Ragi (finger millet) crisps. And I felt I was in gluten free heaven 🙂 . I now know what I need to make for a healthy snack ! Ill share recipe for both in this blog post.
One would imagine the hummus made from avarekai would be green 😛 but it wasn’t, it has a creamy white color. I choose to keep the skin on the grain to keep the fiber. I usually don’t even remove chikpea skin for my regular hummus, it feels like a waste of nutrition to me. Normally tahini is used in hummus but to make it quicker I used powdered sesame here. It makes no difference in taste as per me and saves time.
So here in the recipe for a new way to consume our humble Avrekalu 🙂 in form of Hummus.
Avarekalu Hummus
Ingredients
1 Cup cooked Avarekalu beans (wash and pressure cook for 4-5 whistles)
2-3 Pods of Garlic
3 Tbs Roasted sesame powder
3 tbs Olive Oil
1 tsp sea salt
Juice of 2 small lemons
1/2 – 1 cup Water (depending on consistency desired)
Steps :
1. Preparation : Pressure Cook Avarekai beans (3-4 whistles)
Roast and grind sesame seeds into a powder
2. Put all the ingredients in a mixer grinder and grind into a smooth paste.
Add additional water later to adjust consistency.
3. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and some chilli flakes.
Roasted Ragi Crisps
– made from ragi roti
Ingredients (makes 3-4 rotis)
1/2 cup + 2 tbs Ragi Flour (Finger Millet flour)
1/2 cup water
2 tsp groundnut oil(any oil can be used)
1/4 tsp salt
Steps :
1. Boil 1/2 cup water. Add salt and 1 tsp oil.
2. Once the water is boiled switch off the flame, quickly add the ragi flour to it and vigorously mix with a spoon to combine.
Note : If the dough looks too loose and not similar to a roti dough add few additional spoons of ragi flour and mix again. The combined dough has no dry patches of flour and can be gathered into a corner.
Imp : Use a spoon for this step. And work with boiled water.
3. Leave this to cool for two minutes.
4. Now use slightly oiled hands to make a tight ball out of this dough.The dough almost feels bouncy once made and has a shine to it. Cool for few minutes while your tava heats up.
5. Dust your rolling surface, rolling pin with ragi flour. Take a ball of dough and roll into a flat roti like we do for wheat chapati. Roast it on a hot tava on both sides till it is cooked and dry.
Note : Work with warm dough and a hot tava to make the rotis.
Slightly oiled hands and dusted surfaces make the task much easier.
I use a wooden rolling surface for making this roti. Some even do it on granite/ stone.
6. Cut triangles out of made rotis and roast them again on tava until crisp. If your roti was thin enough it hardly takes a few minutes to get these crisp.
Dip into your hummus and enjoy 🙂
Go eat you Avarekai before it goes out of season !
THE VEGAN BIRDIE 