Sanjivani Spicy Beans & Vegetable Bread/Handvo

Ingredients

• Rice white/brown rice-1 cup, rinsed and soaked for 2 hours
• Urad dal /black gram splits-½ cup, rinsed and soaked for 2 hours
• Mung dal /green gram splits-½ cup, rinsed and soaked for 2 hours
• Toor dal /splits of pigeon peas-½ cup, rinsed and soaked for 2 hours
• Chana dal /splits of chickpeas-½ cup, rinsed and soaked for 2 hours
• Option #1( Carrot , Broccoli , Spinach ) – grated/ground Carrots, Broccoli, and finely chopped Spinach to add up to 1 ½ -2 cups
• Option #2 ( Opo squash /Bottle gourd/Lauki)- grated/ground add up to 1 ½ -2 cups
• Option #3 (Methi/ Fenugreek leaves chopped) add up to 1 ½ -2 cups
• Cilantro finely chopped ½ cup may be added to any of the three options above
• Applesauce (about ½ cup) is optional to add sweetness and softness to the Handvo
• May use sweetener of your choice equivalent to 1 teaspoon of sugar, if desired

Spices

• Turmeric -1 teaspoon
• Ginger, grated-1 tablespoon
• Green Chilies , finely chopped- 1/2-1 tablespoon (for mild to severe spicy hot)
• Black pepper powder-1/2 teaspoon- optional-if tolerated, to improve antioxidant property
• Asafetida -1/2 teaspoon
• Mustard seed -1 teaspoon
• Sesame seed -1 teaspoon
• Baking soda-1 teaspoon /fruit salt 3 teaspoons
• Salt to taste

Liquids

• Water-enough to grind into a thick batter (use less water if using Opo squash, as it releases some water too).
• Avocado Oil /Canola oil/other cooking oil-5-6 tablespoons

Cooking instructions for Batter

• Rinse rice well and soak in 2-3 cups of water for at least two hours
• Rinse and soak Urad dal, Toor dal, Mung dal and Chana dal in 6 cups of water for at least for 2 hours
• Again, rinse the rice and mixture of four dals in a strainer.
• Grind them into a mildly coarse thick pancake like batter
• Put aside the batter in a large vessel for about 24-48 hours at room temperature to ferment. For cold regions, put the batter in the Instant pot pressure cooker with yogurt setting for 3-4 hours. You may also put the batter in the oven on low temperature e.g., 150 deg F.

Fermentation alternate tip: In case, you do not have enough time to ferment, simply prepare the batter with all the vegetables, spices and add ½-3/4 teaspoon of baking soda.  If using fruit salt/Eno instead of baking soda in the batter, then add ¾-1 teaspoon per individual batch just before cooking and mix very well to let it rice.

Cooking instructions for Handvo

• Stir the fermented batter.
• Add 3-4 tablespoonful of oil and salt to taste and mix well.
• Add one of the three vegetable mix options. You may add more vegetables in the same manner or skip some mentioned here based on the availability of vegetables and your taste.
• Add turmeric, black pepper, asafetida, green chilies, ginger, and salt and mix well.
• Now, heat the non-stick pan and add 1 tablespoon of oil.
• Add Mustard seed, Sesame seed and curry leaves. Once they crackle, pour 2 ladles of Handvo batter into a nonstick shallow pan
• Cover the pan with the lid and let it cook for 8-10 minutes on a low flame. Once the top side dry to golden brown, flip over the Handvo and for 5 minutes to cook the other side of it.
• Prick a toothpick in the cooked Handvo. If it comes out clean, then it indicates that Handvo is well-cooked. Remove Handvo from the pan.
• Serve it hot with Buttermilk.

In certain regions, Handvo is consumed with Sweet Kesar-Elaichi milk (Sweet saffron, cardamom milk) but we do not recommend that combination per Ayurveda due to low compatibility.  We instead, recommend consuming with sweet or plain buttermilk (please refer to our recipe for Buttermilk)

Note:

You may use the Handvo batter to make Pudla/Cheela/thin savory pancake or Mixed Dal Dhokla/steamed bread by mildly thinning the batter with a small quantity of water to achieve pancake batter consistency.