Methi Malai Matar
By Vinny • Mar 9th, 2010 • Category: Recipes
Ingredients:
- Methi (Fenugreek leaves) – 250 gms
- Green mung dal with skin – ½ cup
- Boiled Peas or Corn – 1 cup
- Cream – 1 Cup
- Ginger – 2 inch piece grated
- Onions – 2 large, chopped fine
- Tomatoes – 4 large (do not use the sour, round ones)
- Chilli Powder – 1 tbsp
- Garam Masala – 1 tsp (this is a mixture of aromatic spices roasted and ground to a fine powder)
- Oil for frying
- Salt to taste
Method:
- Clean and chop the fenugreek leaves roughly.
- Wash and pick the mung dal.
- Mix the fenugreek leaves with the dal, add the grated ginger and salt and 2 cups of water.
- Cook the dal in a pressure cooker for ten minutes after the first whistle. If you are not using a pressure cooker cook on a slow fire until the mixture forms a paste when stirred.
- Heat oil in a wok and add the onions.
- When the onions have browned, add the chopped tomatoes, chilli powder and salt and cook until the oil floats on top and the mixture resembles a homogeneous paste.
- Add the dal and methi mixture and boil well.
- Add the cream and stir well
- Now add the boiled peas or corn.
- Sprinkle with garam masala powder.
- The dish should be of thick pouring consistency.
You could serve it with both rice and rotis. If you thin it down further it could be served as a soup as well.
Note: If packaged cream is not available, you could use cream that has been skimmed off the top of boiled milk, whipped.
Vinny is a trained singer and an excellent cook. She has been cooking at home and for the last 32 years and is now a restauranteur. An Army officers wife, she has travelled the length and breadth of India and has been exposed to many of the numerous variations of Indian cuisine. She likes to experiment and is particularly fond of breakfast food and meats.
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I was just going to ask how it is served. Scrolled and saw it can be served with rice or roti. Being Punjabi, I would prefer it with roti.
Looks good – I presume that in India – the cream is home made – Malai. Here in UK we get different versions of cream,
Single cream, Double cream, Sour cream and less fat creams under different brand names. Maybe the taste is not the same with the processed creams.
Thanks for sharing – will try it.
@Karam: Single cream was recommended in the original article. I edited it out, since different types of cream aren’t easily or economically available in India.
All Army officer wives I’ve met are amazing cooks! And your recipe seems like a clincher…Will try it this week for sure =))
Thanks so much =))
Shreya, Army officer’s wives become good cooks out of sheer necessity. Often we were forced to cook with whatever ingredients were available and seldom had the luxury of shopping for the ingredients of a particular dish.Moreover parties, dining ins and dining outs etc etc were a recurring feature in the army and if you have to lay a delicious table you might as well learn to cook well.