Misal Pav

Misal is another food on my nutritious but delicious list. Misal (again is native to Maharashtra but not as popular as Batata Vada or Pav Bhaji elsewhere) comprises of a spicy watery sprouts mixture served with farsan, dahi / curds (optional), chopped onions, lemon wedges and pav.

For a long time, I have been used to hearing two different terms for this dish - 'Usal' as well as 'Misal'. I came across people, restaurants using these terms interchangeably. So I thought this was just another case of one being a Marathi name and another probably a Hindi name. Well after all, this happens only in Mumbai. Here pyaz is kanda, lauki is called doodhi etc

Before writing this post I decided to google and fortunately came across Nupur's blog. She explains that the 'Usal' is the spicy sprouts mixture while 'Misal' is the entire dish comprising of Usal, farsan and other garnishings. There she also mentions a special chutney to add to the sprouts gravy which i am sure adds a fiery twist!

This Misal has been inspired by Kajal's 'Sev Usal'. Her pics were so good that I was tempted to try this out. She has primarly used potato & peas to prepare the watery base. However, I added a handful of sprouts to the mixture to add to the nutritional value. Rest of the steps were more or less the same. The sprouts that i used were green gram dal (moong), green chana, matki (moth), brown chana, yellow peas.

To repeat the recipe, cook potato, peas and sprouts in a pressure cooker with salt and little turmeric powder. In a pan, sizzle cumin seeds. Add ginger garlic paste. Add onions and fry till translucent. Add beetroot (This is a good idea to enhance the colour). Add tomatoes, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garam masala powder and cook for sometime. Thereafter add the watery sprouts mixture and cook again for few minutes. For serving, garnish with coriander leaves. Sprinkle some farsan (I used Haldiram's 'all in one' farsan). Serve with pav or bread.

If you want to taste some authentic Maharashtrain snacks in Mumbai then Hotel Prakash in Dadar is the place to be. And don't forget to check out on Piyush. It's a lassi styled drink made out of Shrikhand....mouth watering aint it?