Chana Dal Sundal | Navaratri Sundal Recipes

It is nice to see several blogs filled with various sundal and kheer varieties for Navratri.This time, I decided to do marathon posts for Navaratri to showcase the various simple prashad/neivedyam recipes which would usually not make it into my blog otherwise.While the most common sundal varieties which we make at home are kala chana sundal,kabuli chana sundal,lobia sundal and mixed bean sundal,this year I wanted to try some other varieties so am here posting this simple chana dal sundal.This is a very simple recipe which does not require prior soaking and can be prepared quite quickly.You can check out my other Navarathri recipes here.

Chana dal Sundal Recipe:

(Serves 3-4)

Ingredients:
1 cup Chana dal

2-3 tbsp grated fresh Coconut
3 Green chillies
1/2" Ginger,grated
Salt to taste

to temper:
1 tsp Urad dal
1-2 Red chillies,broken
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
a sprig of Curry leaves
a pinch of Asafoetida
1 tbsp Oil

Method:

• Pressure cook chana dal for 2 whistles or cook on stove top until soft.Chana dal should be soft and firm to touch and should not be either hard or mushy. You can add salt while cooking chana dal or add it at the time of tempering.
• Drain the chana dal and keep it aside,you can use this drained water to use in rasam.
• Grind grated coconut,ginger and green chillies to a coarse paste in whipper mode.
• Heat oil in a kadai and crackle mustard seeds and add urad dal and red chillies and let them turn slight brown.
• Add asafoetida,curry leaves and ground coconut-green chilli-ginger paste and fry it for a minute.
• Add cooked and drained chana dal and required amount of salt and mix well and cook it on low flame for 2 mins.Do not fry them for long as it makes the sundal very dry.
• Switch off the flame..

Serve them hot,warm or cold as a snack or with lunch.

Variations:

1. You can replace chana dal with moong dal and follow the same process
2. Addition of ginger is optional but gives nice flavor.