Drumstick Leaves Dhal Curry | Murungai Keerai Paruppu Kootu | Food for Fertility, Pregnancy & Lactation

We strongly believe, carrot is good for eyes. Do you know? – Compared to carrot, drumstick leaves have more beta-carotenes essential for eyes!! Poor drumstick leaves remain hidden due to less marketing opportunities. I was dumbstruck on reading about the benefits of drumstick leaves in “Aaraam Thinai(part II)” – a book by Dr.K.Sivaraman.

His books always inspire me a lot. He says, drumstick leaves have more Potassium than banana, more Protein than egg, more Vitamin-C than orange, more Iron than other greens and 4 times the Calcium present in milk. What more is required ?? It is the cheapest health tonic !!

Drumstick leaves are recommended for everyone. Specially prescribed for dads-to-be and pregnant ladies. Feeding moms hunt for this, as it is believed to increase breastmilk.

For babies under 1 year(from 7+months), you shall give drumstick leaves and dal clear soup. Over 1 year, this same recipe can be followed decreasing the spice level. Give in small quantity. The leaves might be difficult for them to chew. Just puree them using mixie/blender for proper digestion. Do not give any greens in the night.

This beautiful bowl(used in the pic) was one among the gifts that my first blogger friend Sharmilee Prakash of Sharmispassions offered me, when she visited us in kovai. I am so grateful to Sharmi, who is my inspiration in the field of blogging. She is a versatile blogger, but so down to earth and replied to all my mails dumped with queries about blogging & photography, even a year before publishing my website. Now, no more mails, but I still keep bugging her thru Whatsapp & phone calls 😉 Thank you dear…

In the last day before my US travel, I clicked this in hurry as I deliberately wanted to talk about Sharmi and drumstick leaves in my website 🙂

Preparation

1.Pluck each stem and hold the leaf at the tip. From top towards downwards, strip the leaves. Finally pluck out the top leaf as well.2.From the stripped leaves, for each smaller branch, repeat the same process until all leaves are separated from stems. Separate flowers and buds from stems.3.Pour water and wash well. Leaves will float in water. Try to push down to rinse away the dirts. Then transfer the leaves from water washed vessel to another vessel filled with water. Repeat this twice or thrice until the washed water has no visible dirts/sand.4.Wash toor dal twice and transfer washed dal to cooker. Add turmeric powder and asafoetida.5.Chop onions and tomato. Add choped tomato and a cup of water to dal.6.Pressure cook for 3-4 whistles or until cooked well.7.Add a tbsp of coconut oil and once hot, add mustard seeds. Once spluttered, add chopped onions and fry well.8.Once translucent, add washed drumstick leaves. Fry for a minute and then add sambar powder(link) along with 1/4 cup of water.9.Cook covered in medium flame for 10 minutes. Stir intermittently. Grind 4-5 coconut pieces and jeera with lil water. If you want spicy version, add 1 or 2 dry red chillies while grinding coconut. This will elevate the spice & taste.10.Add cooked dal and ground coconut paste along with salt.11.Mix well and coook covered for 10 more minutes.  Healthy and tasty Drumstick Leaves Dal curry is ready. Serve with rice or roti..

Tips/Tricks

• Easy way to remove drumstick leaves from the stalk – You can just fold the drumstick leaves in a newspaper and keep it overnight. The next day, if you just take each stem and gently wave or tap it over the paper, the leaves will fall off the stalk easily. I do not prefer this method as I like to freshly pluck from the tree and cook on the same day.
• Toor dal can be substituted with split yellow moong gram(paasiparuppu).
• You can cook dal for extra whistle to make it mushy. You shall mash it with mathu as well.
• Pearl onions are preferred for this recipe. But, you shall substitute big onions too.
• Tempering with coconut oil, gives a nice flavor. You shall substitute with ordinary cooking oil too.
• You shall replace sambar powder(link) with your gravy powder. Or just add 1/2tsp dhaniya powder + 1/2tsp plain chilli powder+1 pinch Jeera powder +1 pinch pepper powder. Add more chilli powder for spicy version.