Healthy Sprouts

In my experience, a salad needs atleast four things to come together (everything else is a pleasant extra). Something tart, something crunchy, something flavorful and something which in Telugu we call “kamma”, it translates roughly to ‘bland’ in English. “Kamma” is the taste that you experience with fresh yoghurt, or ghee, and maybe even oil. It’s commonly associated with dairy products. In a salad, this taste helps to tone down the tartness of lime and vinegar. I find the taste of an avocado is quite close to that. And that’s good news for those of us who are trying to find acceptable substitutes for dairy and oil. So here’s my basic mung sprout salad with avocado. The mung sprouts and cucumber are the crunchy part, the tomato and lime bring the tart taste, the cilantro adds flavor and the avocado makes it kamma. And the sesame seeds, they’re in there for the calcium.

1 cup mung sprouts

1 chopped tomato

½ cup chopped cucumber

Juice of ½ a lime

Coriander powder in place of cilantro

½ a chopped avocado

1 tsp sesame seeds

Toss them all together and eat. You can add salt if you absolutely can’t do without it.