Menasina Kootu/Broccolli Black Pepper Kootu

Pepper is believed to have many medicinal properties...Pepper loses flavour and aroma through evaporation, so airtight storage helps preserve pepper's original spiciness longer. Once ground, pepper's aromatics can evaporate quickly; most culinary sources recommend grinding whole peppercorns immediately before use for this reason. Handheld pepper mills (or "pepper grinders"), which mechanically grind or crush whole peppercorns, are used for this, sometimes instead of pepper shakers, dispensers of pre-ground pepper.

Pepper kootu is one of the traditional recipes during the winter months.. This is very nutritious and can be used with a combination of vegetables..I have used brocolli and tomatoes as the base vegetable for this kootu which makes it even more healthy..

What you need:

Brocolli florets(1cup)
2tomatoes chopped
cooked & mashed toor dall (1/2 cup)
milk 1cup
1tsp honey/little jaggery
oil 2tsp
seasonings: mustard, curry leaves, hing

To dry fry and grind

2tbsp coriender seeds
2tsp black pepper corns
3dried red chillies
1tsp jeera

Method:
In a pan add the seasonings with oil.. Now add the brocolli and tomatoes , 1/2cup water and boil the vegetables for a few minutes till they r well cooked.. Now add the boiled and mashed dall and mix well.
Now add the dry ground masala, salt and mix well..Add 1cup milk , honey and close the lid and boil the kootu for another 5minutes till all the flavours blend and the consisstency is right..
Serve this with hot rice or chapatis...

Microwave cooking tips:

Tip: The entire dish can be prepared in less than 10minutes in a microwave.. You can precook the toor dall ahead and add or dry grind 2tbsp toor dall which has been fried lightly for 2mins . Add this dal powder with the cooked vegetables and microwave adding water and milk.Make sure you stir the mixture every 2minutes once the masala and milk is added to the boiled veggies...

Tip 2: It is always helpful to fry toor/channa dal lightly till nice aroma comes and grind it into a fine /coarse powder and store. This will be very handy in microwave sambhars/rasam/any other gravies with a dal base. This will cook much faster and the consistency can be very well adjusted..