Asparagus Usili-Paruppu Usili-Usili Recipe

TH loves usili. Its one of the first dishes I cooked for him back in the day when we had just started seeing each other. I made it totally 'wrong' - with onions, coconut and garlic - stuff that's not really preferred much in a Brahmin household (expect maybe the coconut).

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Of course, you can make Usili with cabbage, capsicum, cluster beans, broad beans and the most popular French beans, so I was tempted to try it with asparagus.

Asparagus Usili Recipe
Serves 2-3  

Asparagus (I used the thinner Thai variety) - 1 cup, cut into 1" pieces and par boiled in boiling water for 3 mins
Toor dal / tuvaram paruppu - ½ cup
Channa dal / kadala paruppu  - 1 tbsp
Dried red chillies - 3 to 4
Hing/asafoetida (kayam) - ¼ tsp
Turmeric powder - a pinch
Oil - 1 tablespoon (depends on the method you use to cook the dal)
Salt - to taste 

How I Made It:

1. Wash and soak the toor dal and channa dal (you can put them together) for about 1.5 hours.

2. Once soft, grind this coarsely with red chillies, turmeric, some salt and hing and as little water as possible (Sprinkle a few drops so the mixture comes together a bit).

3. The next step is to cook this dal mixture with the asparagus. Its really that simple. There are different ways to cook the dal.

(a) Microwave it till almost done, stirring every one minute. It will take about 4 minutes for it to be almost cooked.

(b) Pat the dal mixture with your hand until you have one thick round roti-like disc and then steam it for 3-4 minutes. This won't work if you added too much water while grinding. Not to worry, either follow step (a) or

(c) Pour copious amounts of oil (you need atleast 3-4 tbsp) into a pan and stir-fry the dal mixture. This will take anywhere between 7-10 minutes and is allegedly the tastiest of them all.

I have tried all three methods and found that the steaming method makes the softest and healthiest usili. The microwave version tends to make it a bit dry but its really not that bad at all. The oil-heavy one is the best of course. It has to be, otherwise it defies the rules of healthy cooking and eating.

4. If you already started out in a pan, then just add the asparagus when the dal is almost done and cook for another 4-5 minutes without adding more oil. If you microwaved or steamed the dal, then heat a pan, add 1 tablespoon oil and dump in the dal and asparagus and mix well for about 5 minutes.