Perfect Pulses

When I first became vegetarian my main concern was getting enough protein in my diet.
I knew that pulses could be a good source of meat-free protein – cheap and healthy.
My newly purchased Indian cookbook was bursting with recipes waiting to be tried, all I had to do was take the first step into the world of pulse practitioners.

I’ve found that many people are scared of cooking pulses for a variety of reasons.

• Don’t they take hours of soaking?
• You have to cook them in a pressure cooker
• They make you fart!
• They are tasteless and bland.
• Only hippies like Neil off the Young Ones eat lentils!

All apart from the last of these things can be true, but in a lot of cases none of them are.

Soaking

Some pulses do need to be soaked. This mostly applies to beans – kidney beans, black beans, lima beans, chickpeas, etc
These pulses are larger and therefore harder than others and require soaking to soften them up for cooking.
Beans also contain large amounts of oligosaccharides (a complex carbohydrate) which are hard for the body to digest and soaking the beans allows these to be leached away into the water
Lentils generally do not need to be soaked before cooking, particularly split lentils.

Pressure Cooking

Some of the pulses that require long soaking do benefit from being cooked in a pressure cooker. It is also a useful way to reduce the cooking time on beans which would otherwise require hours of boiling – hardly economical!
Again this is rarely necessary with lentils.

Flatulence

No one likes to talk about this, but the truth is that some people will get flatulence from eating pulses, especially in large amounts.
This is caused by the body breaking down the oligosaccharides and other complex carbohydrates found in the pulses.
Obviously everyone’s body breaks down carbohydrates differently so some will be affected more by this than others.
If you suffer with this problem it is worth remembering 2 things:
1) Flatulence from eating pulses tends to reduce once your body becomes more accustomed to breaking them down
2) While it is embarrassing, it is also something that EVERYONE gets at times.

Blandness

Lentils & pulses often do not have a great deal of flavour in themselves, but this makes them wonderful carriers for flavours to be introduced to.
Indian cuisine makes excellent use of this property by pairing pulses with spices, onions, garlic & sour tamarind.

Hippies

I proudly claim this label. I’m a card carrying, incense burning, dairy avoiding, lentil eating hippy.
You, however may not be and that’s fine too. You should still consider adding lentils to your diet.
They are packed with fibre (both soluble and insoluble) and protein and they have a low GI.
For any Young Ones fans reading, don’t worry – lentils rarely explode in real life!

Health Benefits of Pulses.

As mentioned above pulses are a great source of vegan protein. They also contain good amounts of dietary fibre which is great for your digestive system and may help lower cholesterol.
Pulses count as 1 of your 5 a day and if well spiced / seasoned can be a sneaky way to get some goodness into kids and vegetable phobic adults.
They are also a good source of iron which is something that can be an issue with meat free diets.
More on the health benefits of pulses

My Pulses of Choice

You will notice in this and other posts that I use the word Dhal when talking about pulses. This is from the Indian word for pulses and can be used to mean the dried form or a meal made from them.
There are many different spellings – dhal, daal, dal, etc. I use dhal because that how it is spelt in my 1st Indian recipe book.

All of the pulses I use from dried are those which require little or no soaking. I’m simply not organised enough yet for the other kinds.
When I need to use chickpeas or kidney beans I will get them from a tin or a carton. Most supermarkets now offer organic tinned pulses at a price that makes them accessible for use in small amounts.

Green Lentils

These are not to be confused with the fashionable french Puy lentils. You want the bog-standard green ones – much cheaper.
Puy lentils are also smaller and harder. They keep their shape more when cooked whereas standard green lentils break down a fair bit.

Red Split Lentils

These are the ones you are most likely to have come across as a non-pulse eater. They are often used to thicken soups and stews.
These require the least cooking time of any lentil I’ve come across so far. 20 minutes and they are done.

Toor Dhal (oily)

Toor Dhal is the Indian name for Split Pigeon Peas.
I always seem to find the oily version in my local supermarkets. Oily dhals are covered in castor oil as a preservative.
If you use these you really DO have to rinse them incredibly well. Keep rinsing until the water runs clear or your meal will taste of castor oil.

Chana Dhal

Chana Dhal is Black Chickpeas with the outer hull removed and the kernel split.
These require a short soaking time of about 30-60 minutes.
I find this manageable as they can be soaking while I’m getting the rest of my ingredients together and generally faffing about in preparation for cooking – there’s always a bit of washing up to do!

In upcoming posts I will be giving you recipes for all of the above pulses and more.
Not all of the recipes will be Indian in origin, I have a wonderful Turkish soup and a lentil bake of no fixed nationality!

R

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