Pinto Beans Sundal ~ Pinto Beans Stir Fried with Coconut and Lightly Spiced with Red Chillies and Asafoetida

Happy Navrathri! Happy Dusserah!

It is such fun filled festive occassions that make me miss home a lot. Yes, it is true that you have built this new family of friends, new home and get the opportunity to celebrate with them and create new memories but the memories of celebrating these back home are bittersweet and still comes back to me. With August starts the festive season for us. First Onam, then Janmashtami, followed by Ganesh Chaturthi, then Navrathri and finishing with Diwali. And then thankfully the holiday season starts and it keeps you going till end of the year

Navrathri is a 9 night / 10 day festival celebrating Goddess Sakthi in different forms. It is celebrated all across India in verious different forms. In TamilNadu and Kerala, among the TamBrahms, we celebrate by keeping a display of dolls called Golu and making offerings to God everyday,  the more common one is Sundal. Sundal is a power house of proteins with stir fried legume/lentils, seasoned with chillies, asafoetida and topped with some grated coconut. 

 Pinto beans is not common in Indian cooking and is definitely not something common in making sundal with. But since we make sundal with pretty much any kind of legume / beans – garbanzo, kidney beans, blackeyed peas, chana dal / split chickpeas, green gram etc, I thought, why not make it with Pinto beans one day. Another reason behind this was that I ran out of any other canned beans and did not have the time to soak and cook with any of the raw beans I had. So, pinto beans it was and it tasted pretty good too, that I am thinking of bringing it into my list of beans for sundals.

Pinto Beans Sundal – The Recipe

• Pinto Beans – 1 can, rinsed and drained
• Canola oil – 1 tbsp
• Mustard Seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Dried Red Chillies – 3 or 4
• Asafoetida – 1 pinch
• Curry leaves – a sprig
• Grated coconut – 3 tbsp
• Salt, to taste

Heat the oil in a skillet or kadhai. Add the mustard seeds to it. Let them splutter. Add the asafoetida, dried red chillies and curry leaves to it. Once the red chillies lent out an aroma (do not let htem burn), add the pinto beans to the pan.

Add salt and stir fry well for a couple of mins. Add the coconut towards the end and give it a couple more quick stirs.

Switch off heat and enjoy with your evening cup of tea!

Linking this The Weekly Story – 51 on Colors Dekor, where Patricia talks about Navrathri!