Moringa Leaves Chutney Powder / முருங்கைக்கீரை பொடி

Moringa Leaves Chutney Powder

In my childhood, we used to live in a big single family home with lots of trees and flowering plants. There was almost every tree in our backyard. You name it, we will have it! For example, Coconut trees, Mango tree, Guava Tree, Pomegranate tree, Banana Tree, Moringa Tree, and the list goes on......

Hmm, we come across a lot about the Moringa Trees, and the goodness of their leaves nowadays. The vegetable from this tree is called Drumsticks. We can cook delicious dishes with these drumsticks, with a combination of lentils or just a curry which will be yummy with cooked rice varieties, idli or dosa. 

The leaves from this tree are also very healthy. It can be cooked with lentils as well.  The kids may not like the taste of these leaves.  In this case, we can make chutney powders and they can mix this with hot cooked rice and clarified butter (ghee).

When I have a lot of moringa leaves, if I do not want to cook all of them into a curry, I clean and wash them and dry in shade (inside the house) for about 1 week. They will be dry and ready to grind into powder. 

Let's look at the ingredients needed to make this chutney powder.

Dried Moringa Leaves - 1 cup

Urad Dal / Black Gram - 1/2 cup

Channa Dal (Chickpea lentil) - 1 tbsp

Dry Red Chillies - 1/2 cup

Cumin Seeds/ Jeera - 1 tsp

Asafoetida / Hing - 1/2 tsp if using in powder form, or few pieces 

Salt to taste

1. In a pan, add few drops of cooking oil and add the urad dal and red chillies and roast until the dal becomes golden color and you will be able to smell t he aroma of the dal. 

2. Then transfer the dal into a plate and then add the channa dal and roast it in the same pan. You need not add oil to roast  because the oil sticking to the pan itself will be enough. 

3. Now switch off the stove and add the cumin seeds, hing and salt. The heat in the pan itself will be sufficient to roast them. Please note that the leave are already dry , so you need not roast them. 

4. Cool all the ingredients in a plate. Then grind it into a fine powder. along with the leaves.  For the given measurements, you will approximately get 1 cup of ground chutney powder. 

 

This chutney powder can be eaten with idli or dosa and also hot rice with a generous amount of ghee on top. 

Let us all eat healthy and live healthy!! Please do not forget to leave your valuable comments!