When I moved to India I was in for a huge culinary surprise. Growing up in the Midwest most of the beans and lentils seemed to be flavored with meat. Baked beans had bacon, pinto beans had pork butt. As a child canned peas were the bane of my existence, I cannot emote enough to explain how much I hated peas in America. They were always olive green with a mushy texture. I once was forced to sit at the dining table for what seemed like hours- until I finished my peas. I was only able to get up because when I was alone I hid the peas on the window sill behind the curtain, I still wonder who or when they found them.

Yet when I came to India, I fell in love with peas. We arrived in winter when peas are at the height of their season. Kilos of fresh pea pods would enter the house to be shelled. Peas were made by themselves and added to a zillion other vegetables, each combination better than the last.

Beyond the fresh peas readily available in the market was the variety of legumes. Silly me growing up in the Midwest never knew how many varieties or styles they came in. I had grown up on pinto and navy beans and had heard of garbanzo beans and black eyed peas. Yet in India I discovered Arhar, Urad, Moong, Masoor and others. Garbanzo beans came in white, black, and green. Even the normal pinto bean came in a variety of colors and textures. You could cook them in a variety of ways, you could make flour from garbanzo beans and make even more dishes. Yet it is the simple moong dal that intrigued me.

Whole moong comes as a roundish green pellet in this form you could make a lentil gravy or what we usually do is soak the whole moong and then set it aside to sprout. Many people eat these sprouts raw. However I prefer to sauté them with cumin, onion and ginger, add a bit of salt and pepper and then steam them until soft. Others like to squeeze a bit of lemon at this time. I prefer no lemon, if I eat it hot, I like it served with hot buttered toast. It’s scrumptious and I don’t even have to feel guilty about eating it. Sometimes in the summer I would refrigerate the cooked sprouts and add chopped tomato, onion, and maybe even cucumber, sprinkle it with chaat masala and squeeze a bit of lemon over it. Served cold it is a fantastic summer snack.

The next level for moong is just to split it. If I am cooking a mixed dal I will use the split for color and texture.

The last level of moong is the split yellow moong (dhuli moong). The green skin is removed. When made into a regular dal I find the texture similar to baby food and the flavor uninteresting. Which is probably why it is the dal most often given to sick people.

However, I do have a favorite dhuli moong dish, Mangochi. I don’t remember the first time I had it, but I can remember sitting in my seat at the dining table in my marital home. The table was filled with steel - plates, spoons and serving bowls, the table surrounded by all 6 of us living in the house. I was wary of this new dish. The gravy looked watery with chunks of slightly flattened bread like balls. It turns out the gravy or “rassa” was flavored heavily with ginger and a hint of tomato and cumin. The chunks turned out to be pakoras (deep fried savory batter) made from dhuli moong that had been soaked and then turned into a batter laced with ginger and green chilis and deep fried. The pakoris had soaked up a lot of liquid and were soft and velvety. Over the years we would have that dish often, each time I would drool at this liquid concoction.

After Hubby and I moved from our marital home, I would ask our cook to make it, but they never understood what I wanted. So today, after craving the dish for a couple of weeks I decided to try and make it myself….. I tried. I looked at recipes on the internet, hoping to find something similar. While I found some, most of the recipes used a lot of oil and added yogurt to the gravy, which made the dish look heavy. So I decided to just look at how they flavored the pakoris and the gravies. I searched my memory to decide which ingredients felt right. I think in the end I merged my memories with 3-4 recipes , trying for the hint of spicy rassa that I remembered.

So the experiment began. Soaking the dal for three hours. Chopping (ok so I had my kitchen help do the chopping). 3 tomatoes, about an inch and a half of fresh ginger, two large onions, 3 green chilis. I began to pull out the spices, zeera (cumin seed) , methi (fenugreek) seeds, kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves), Red chilli peppers, hing (asafoetida), salt, red chilli powder. I began to make the rassa testing at each step adding in more of this and more of that until I was close to the flavor of my memory although not the texture. Then I drained the moong ki dal and added in some of the ginger and ground it in the mixie (blender), until I got a thick paste. I transferred the batter into a bowl and added raw onion, green chilis, salt, hing and zeera. Once again I handed the next step to my kitchen help as he makes really good pakoris. I watched him drop 1” balls of batter into hot oil and watched them turn golden brown. After the first batch I tested and realized the pakoris were bland, so added more green chilli, a dash of red chilli pepper and dash more salt.

After a couple of us ate. Most of the masala gone or absorbed. Late comers just got pakoris and a hint of masala.

Then I left him to it, telling him to add the pakoras to the rassa about 10 minutes before lunch (as that is what most of the recipes I saw said). Well maybe that is where the difference between what was served in my house and the kadhi or salan the other recipes were. When it came time to serve lunch all of that gingery liquid was gone, soaked into the pakoris. While the texture was good I think the pakoris needed a bit more soaking time. So next time I’ll make triple the rassa (liquid/curry) and I’ll add more onion and green chilli to the pakoris. I’ll even grate the tomato instead of chop to get the flavor with not as much chunky texture. So I spent a couple of hours cooking an ok dish, but I’m on the right road to making a fantastic mangochi.

June 2020 (2 tries later)

I don't envy people who write cookbooks. To make something over and over trying to tweak something a little here and a little there to get it just right.

The second time I made the mangochi, went more smoothly than the first. The flavors were closer to what I remembered, but the textures were all wrong. Instead of a nice bit of gingery water, it was water with chunks of onion and tomato. Basically the mouthfeel was not satisfying. In addition I had to temper extra masala several times and add to the rassa as it tasted too blah and bland.

We are still in Covid 19, not really lockdown, but close to it. Delhi NCR's numbers are beginning to rise significantly. While the area is open, we have my father-in-law staying with us for at least a week. As a special treat I'm trying once again to make the mangochi, it's almost there but I might have put a bit too much methi (fenugreek) seed in the rassa. But I have learned a couple of things since my first try.

Make at least twice as much rassa as the original recipe recommended.
Puree everything so that the curry is more watery and the only texture comes from the Koftas.
Next time I may add a bit of lemon juice to the ginger/garlic after making the paste to cut the bitterness.
Go easy on the red and green chilis, can always add red chili powder if heat isn't enough.
This time I used 10 tomatoes, I think next time I'll decrease it to 7 or 8. Mainly because I felt this was more tomatoey than I wanted.

45 minutes after pakoras were first put in.

The pakoris and the gravy were made in the late afternoon. The pakoris were crispy on the outside and soft inside. The gravy was thin and watery, like I wanted, but a little bitter to my taste.

In my house no one eats at the same time. We've tried, but most want to eat between 7:30 and 8pm while others want to eat between 9 and 10 pm. In order to ensure that everyone got some of the rassa (gravy), I removed about 1/3 of it and kept it separate. When adding the pakoris I only put in half in hopes that all the rassa wouldn't be soaked up before everyone had a chance to eat.

Dinner was served at various times, 8, 8:30, 9:30. I'm glad that I kept a large portion of the rassa to the side, next time I may only soak the pakoris in 1/3 and keep 2/3 of the rassa so that when served, the rassa will still be a bit watery. What happened was the pakoris soaked up most of the water leaving a thicker tomato gravy in it's place. It still tasted good, but it wasn't the consistency I wanted. Luckily we had the extra rassa so the pakoris were put in the katori and the extra rassa was poured in.

While everyone praised my mangochi, if I had to review it I would say, the pakoris were soft and velvety, but need a bit more onion and green chili. I first ate the pakoris plain as they came out of the oil, by adding more chili and onion, they would make a perfect snack on their own. As for the rassa, the bitterness had mainly disappeared by the time we served, so I think by adding a bit of lemon juice to the ginger/garlic paste and reducing the methi seeds, the bitterness should fully disappear on my next try. I had the mangochi about 45 minutes after they had been added to the rassa. They still maintained their shape and good texture, but I have a feeling those who ate later may have found them over soft.

So overall, my search for the mangochi I had in my marital home is still in progress, but I can see that I am so close. Next time, hopefully I'll be home. Below find the latest version of my mongochi recipe.

4Nbahu's MANGOCHI

From Where I Got Recipe

Memory and several recipes on internet.

PAKORA INGREDIENTS

1 Cup of Skinless Moong Lentils (dhuli Moong dal)

1 1/2 Onion finely chopped

2 teaspoons Cumin Seed (zeera)

1 inch fresh ginger chopped very fine (adrak)

2 green chilis finely chopped

pinch of asafoetida (hing)

1/2 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)

1/4 teaspoon red chili powder

Coriander leaves if you like them. I don't so I don't know how much to add.

Ghee or Oil for deep frying.

RASSA INGREDIENTS

8 tomatoes grated or pureed (about 2 cups)

3-4 Onions pureed

1 Tbs Powdered Coriander Seed (Dhanya Powder)

1 Tbs Cumin Seeds (zeera)

2 tsp Fenugreek Seeds (methi danna)

1/2 teaspoon turmeric (haldi)

1/4 tsp Asafoetida (hing)

3 Green chilis split long ways

3 whole dried red chilis torn in half

2 teaspoons of salt (or to taste)

4 teaspoons of Kasoori Methi (dried fenugreek leaves)

1 bulb garlic pureed

2 - 3 inches of ginger (adrak) Pureed

1 tsp of FRESH Lemon Juice

5 cups of Water

4 Tablespoons of Ghee or Mustard Oil (any oil if others not available)

PAKORA METHOD

Soak dal for 3-4 hours.
Rinse and drain the dal.
Place a small amount of dal into a mixie or blender to create a paste. Slowly add the rest of the dal until the dal is a thick paste.
Add ginger to the paste and blend for a few seconds.
Take a whisk or other tool and whisk air into the batter.
Add each of the other ingredients, whisking between each addition (for air incorporation)
Heat ghee or oil
Using hands drop 1- 1 1/2 inch balls of batter into hot oil and fry until golden brown (they will swell after being put in the rassa) . Place on a plate with a paper towel to absorb extra fat.

RASSA METHOD

Puree garlic and ginger and add lemon juice put to side
Puree onions put to the side
Place 4 Tablespoons of Ghee/Mustard Oil in wide pan.
Add zeera and Methi
Add dried red chilis
Add Hing
Add green chilis
Add ginger and garlic purees and saute until it changes color and liquid evaporates
Add onion puree to ginger/garlic paste and saute until most of liquid evaporates.
Add grated or puréed tomato. And bring to a boil. Cook until almost tomato paste.
Add coriander powder, turmeric and salt.
Bring to a boil
Add 5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Taste.
Adjust seasoning as needed.
If you find ginger or chili flavor less you can temper extra in a separate pan and add to the original. Can add a pinch of red chili powder if required, But ginger is the king of this dish. Step by Step Instruction Bullet Points

Can keep the two items separately up to 24 hours.

30 Minutes before serving bring rassa to a boil add the kasoori methi. Remove 1/2-1/3 of the rassa and put to the side. Add the pakoris to the remaining rassa 10 minutes before serving. Serve Mangochi in katoris (small bowl). Heat the separate rassa. Place desired number of pakoris in katori with rassa, if the pakori rassa is too thick add some of the extra rassa in the katori. Serve Hot.