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Actress Neena Gupta who was last seen in the ‘83 and ‘Badhai Do, has a string of interesting projects lined up ahead of her, like the second season of Masaba Masaba, where she plays mother to her real-life daughter and designer Masaba. Ever since the release of ‘Badhai Ho’ actress Neena Gupta has become quite a sensation on social media too. And from her Instagram, we learned that the veteran actress is not just a foodie, but an excellent cook as well. Earlier this week, she shared her recipe of healthy tikki made with aloo, gajar, shimla mirch, peas, beans, dalia, and paneer, and now she is back with yet another toothsome recipe.
This time around, the ‘Last Color’ actress cooked Misal, and gave it a healthy twist. For the uninitiated, Misal is a popular Maharashtrian delicacy. It is a fiery curry made with Matki or Mung bean sprouts, which is easily available in most local grocery stores. Or you can simply buy Matki beans and spout it at home. Other than these beans, Misal is also cooked with hot spices, ginger and garlic. It may or may not be topped with sev/farsaan and chopped onions. It is paired with fresh, buttery Pav, and is a popular street food item too.
Giving us a sense of her ‘healthy’ spin, Neena Gupta mentions the contents of her recipe in her caption. “Healthy misal..Ingredients - Chickpeas, moong/ matki sprouts, mustard seeds, jeera, hing, kadipatta, ginger & garlic paste, onion, tomatoes, haldi & dhania powder, lal mirchi powder, goda masala & farsan”, she notes.
Like last time, Neena has kept the recipe simple. For her healthy misal pao she used ‘sabut moong sprouts (Moong bean sprouts)” that she had been sprouting for two days. Further, she puts the chickpeas and bay leaves in the cooker to boil, she had already soaked the chickpeas overnight.
Explaining the next few steps she says, that first you need to heat the oil, add cumin or mustard seeds, when it splutters add hing, curry leaves, ginger-garlic paste and then chopped onions which you are supposed to sautee well.
Then to her nicely roasted onions, Neena adds red chilli powder, coriander powder, chopped tomatoes. “Tamatar pakao acche se”, she instructs. Tomatoes should be very well-cooked before you add the sprouts and chole.
“Ratio zaruri hai, mai zyada sprouts dalti hu kam chole (Ratio is important, I use more sprouts and fewer chickpeas”, says Neena in her video before adding a spoonful of Goda Masala, a Maharashtrian spice blend that one of her staff got her from her village.
Afterwards, she adds the goda masala, and cooks the Misal on high flame and then adds the water in which the chickpeas were boiled. Further, she cooks the misal until it starts bubbling, “Boil karo kaafi der, (bring it to a nice boil)” In the end, she garnishes the Misal it with fresh dhaniya or chopped coriander leaves.
The video ends with Neena serving the portion of Misal. She takes the curry in a bowl and tops it with chopped onions and Farsaan. She signs of saying, “Farsaan kam dalna ho to kaam dale kyuki yahi isme ek unhealthy cheez hai, (you can moderate the amount of Farsaan, as it is the only unhealthy element of the dish).
