Horse Gram soup

When I bought horse gram 2 weeks back, I was unaware of the goodness it had.  I just knew it was good for health in general terms and I bought it just for sake of a healthy addition to our regular food. But I was really amazed to know the actual nutritional facts about horse gram. It is horse food, imagine the strength in the food!!!! Though I bought it, I dint really use it much.  I felt as though I was preventing nutrition to enter into my body. This guilt feeling in me made me try this soup. The climate is changing and its getting cold. San Diego is seeing some rains for the past coupe of years. I wouldn call it rain but this drizzle is also a great boon to us. This great climate calls for a hot soup right??? So come lets enjoy this soup.

Health Benefits:

It is a cure for kidney and bladder stones.

It is also used to purify the menstruation in women.

It helps in controlling high blood pressure.

Important Point:  Horse Gram generates lot of heat in the body. Make sure you take sufficient substitues like yogurt, buttermilk, milk or drink lots of water after consuming any dish made out of horse gram

Ingredients:

Horse Gram - 1/2 cup
Carrot - 1 cut lengthwise
Onion - 1/2 cut length wise
Broccoli - 3- 5 florets
Salt - to taste
Pepper - to taste
Oil - 1 tbsps
Cloves - 3
Bay Leaf - 1
Garlic - 1 tbps chopped fine
Sugar - 1 tsps
Basil - 1 tsps chopped

Preparation:

Soak Horse gram for about 5 - 8 hrs and cook it in a pressure cooker.

In a pan, heat oil, add cloves, bay leaves, garlic. Fry for few seconds and add onions.

Add carrots and cook for another 3 mins. Add broccoli and let the veggies cook for about 4 mins.

When the veggies become tender add horse gram, salt, pepper and water or vegetable stock according to your need. I used the stock of the cooked horse gram.

Bring everything to a boil. You could add basil for extra flavor. I did :-)

Add sugar, mix well and remove from heat. The reason to add sugar is that, horse gram has a bitter taste. So I added sugar to reduce that bitter taste. Or you use just water or vegetable stock instead of the horse gram stock itself and the bitterness would be very minimal

Serve hot with bread or croûtons.

Sending this to Deb's Souper Sunday's , Hearth and Soul
Susan's MLLA #28 Event hosted by Divya from Dil Se for this month