Beans Paruppu Usili/ Beans cooked with lentils

When you are bored of the regular stir fries/poriyal, I would say Usili is something that can brighten up your day. Forget about having it as side dish, paruppu usili by itself is one wholesome meal. The lentils cooked to perfection and the beans gives the crunch needed. One of my favourite combo would be Rasam and beans paruppu usili.

Beans and lentil usili

Ingredients

For Usili:

Chana dal (kadalai paruppu)-1/4 cup

Toor dal (Thuvaram paruppu) -1/4 cup

Dry red chillies- 5

Garlic- 3 cloves

Asafoetida- 1/2 teaspoon

Salt

Other ingredients 

Beans-250 grams

Onion- 1 (finely chopped)

Curry leaves 1 sprig

Dry red chillies- 3

Turmeric powder- 1/4 teaspoon

Oil- 1 tablespoon

Salt

How to start?

Soak both the dals for a minimum of one hour. Drain the water completely. In a mixer grinder add dal, dry red chillies, garlic, asafoetida, salt and grind it coarsely without adding water. Take idly pot,  grease the idly plate with little oil and scatter the dals in each mould. Steam it for 10 mins. Once the steamed dals gets cooled down, crumble the cooked dal with hands. 

Meanwhile add a tablespoon of oil in a pan, once it gets heated up add mustard seeds, dry red chilli, onion and curry leaves. Saute it for 3 mins, add the finely chopped beans,turmeric powder and salt. Remember to check the amount of salt as we have already added salt in usili. Add 1/2 cup of water and allow the beans to cook.

Once the beans gets cooked and when the water get dried up,  add the crumbled dal to it and saute it for some 2 mins. Check for salt at the end. 

Beans paruppu usili is ready to be served with Rasam or sambhar. It can even be had with some dollops of ghee added to some hot rice. 

Beans Parrupu Usili

I cooked the beans with little water sprinkled down in microwave for 5 mins. Then made tempering in a pan,  added the cooked beans and dal, and gave final stir for 2 minutes. You can give this a try as its less time consuming!!

Alternatively you can also cook the beans separately in a kadai.

Add the ground dal mixture directly in the kadai after tempering, saute it well in oil and add cooked beans, giving it a good mix.