Moth bean specification
You may know in the list of beans recipe, moth bean is the name reminded usually. In the beans family, moth bean must be one of the most drought-tolerant plants. They could grow well in dry soil and could stand the hot wind. And one special thing for moth bean crop that the adding fertilizer during the harvest season typically in India is uncommon known.
The difficulty of harvest from dense and creep plants, together with the researches of improving moth bean has not been done multiply, are the reason why this bean has not been widely grown in the world, although it is a good cheap food source. It is still mainly grown in India now and could be considered as national crop there. It’s also grown in some dry areas of US, Australia, and Asia.
Moth bean Nutrition content
Like most of beans genus, moth bean contains many nutrients and minerals, especially protein. 100g of raw moth bean provides 343 (kcal), the nutrients contained are about 23g protein, numbers of vitamins (B1, B6, B12, C), numbers of minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium) and some other nutrients with small amount.
Moth bean is believed to help treating a fever. This bean is also low in fat and very suitable for diet.
Moth bean sprouts
Moth bean is widely use in India beans recipe and in many dishes like curry, Matki Usal, snack…it is also soaked and sprouted to bean sprout. The bean sprouts made from moth bean is like mung bean nearly. It gives a good taste as vegetable to the dishes.
We could soak moth bean from 6-8 hours or over night, then wash them with clean water and drain them. Put the soaked moth bean into a towel or cloth and place in a container. Put whole container in a warm and dark place. We should check out the container and sprinkled water during the time to assure the towel or cloth be moisten. The moisten cloth will keep the bean warm and sprout easily.
We could also use paper carton without towel or cloth to sprout the bean. The carton should be holed to avoid waterlogged to the beans.
After 12-15 hours, the bean has been sprouted and we could harvest. They could be about 2-3 cm long. We could also harvest them when they grow longer (4-8cm). It will depend on you.
As usual, 80-100 g beans will give 400-500 g bean sprouts.
After harvested, we could use them raw or cooked. They are very rich in nutrition; the flavor is also slightly sweet and could make to many delicious dishes.
We should use the moth bean sprouts right after harvested to get the freshly flavor. They could be kept in the fridge, but will still slowly grow.
Besides moth beans, mung beans, Lentil, Adzuki or Garbanzo could be sprouted to bean sprouts also.
