Misal Pav

How to Cook Misal Pav

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1. Sprout the moth beans first: soak them 8 hours, drain, then tie them in a damp cloth and leave 12 to 16 hours until small tails appear.

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2. For the usal, heat the oil and crackle the mustard and cumin seeds, then add the curry leaves and asafoetida.

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3. Add the chopped onion and cook 8 minutes until soft, then the turmeric.

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4. Add the sprouts, salt and 200 ml water. Cover and simmer 20 minutes until tender but not collapsing. Set aside.

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5. While the usal simmers, make the rassa: dry roast the coconut in a pan until deep golden and nutty, about 4 minutes, then blend it with the garlic, ginger and half the sliced onion to a paste.

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6. Fry the remaining onion in the oil for 12 minutes until dark, then add the paste and cook 8 minutes until the oil separates and rises.

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7. Add the kanda lasun masala and ground coriander and fry 2 minutes, standing back — it is pungent.

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8. Pour in the hot water and salt and simmer 15 minutes. The rassa should stay thin, and a layer of red oil should float on top. Do not skim it off.

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9. To serve, spoon usal into each bowl, ladle hot rassa over it, and top generously with farsan, raw onion and coriander.

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10. Add a lime wedge and serve at once with griddled pav, before the farsan softens.

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Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.

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Things to Watch For

1. Assemble at the table. Farsan added early turns to paste within two minutes.
2. The red oil on the rassa is the point, not a fault. Leave it.
3. Sprout the beans yourself — tinned or unsprouted moth beans give a flat, heavy misal.

Swaps and Variations

• Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the chilli. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
• Lemon is the everyday swap for limes in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.
• If you only have ground ginger, a quarter-teaspoon for each tablespoon of fresh is the ratio usually given; it tastes warmer and less bright than the fresh root.

A Little Background

Misal is two things in one bowl: the usal, a mild sprouted-bean base, and the rassa, a thin spiced gravy poured over it. Keeping them separate until the moment of serving is what stops the farsan going soft, and the layer of red oil on top of the rassa is not a fault — it is rendered from the kanda lasun masala and carries most of the aroma.

On the Table Alongside

Griddled pav rolls · Buttermilk or a cold lassi · Extra farsan on the table

Leftovers

Usal and rassa keep 3 days refrigerated, separately, and freeze 2 months. Add farsan only at serving.

Common Questions

What's in a Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

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