Nuchinunde/Nuchina unde/Steamed Lentil balls served with Neer Majjige/Spiced butermilk

Nuchina unde, a specialty breakfast from Karnataka. Nuchina means 'Broken' and unde means, 'Balls'. These are nothing but steamed lentil balls. The lentils are soaked and then ground with necessary spices and then steam cooked. It sounds similar to the paruppu usli we make. I refered to Smitha's recipe here, she has used dill leaves along with other spices, i have omitted that and followed the recipe as such.

I served the steamed balls along with neer majjige/spiced buttermilk. Oh we loved taking a bite of the lentil ball and sipping yummy majjige. The combination was out of the world, even my fussy elder one loved it. It is a simple recipe, do try and let me know how you liked it.

Ingredients

¾ cup tuvar dal/Split pigeon peas

¾ cup chana dal/gram dal

5-6 nos red chilies, round variety

1 inch piece of ginger

¼ cup of shredded carrots (optional)

handful of coriander leaves

2 strands of curry leaves

1 large onion, chopped fine

2 pinches of hing

¼ teaspoon haldi

¾ teaspoon salt or to taste

Method

Wash and soak both the dals together for 2-3 hours. Drain well, add chilies and ginger to this and pulse it to make a coarse paste in a mixer, without adding any water.
The dal mixture has to be coarsely ground, not to a fine paste, that will alter the taste and texture of this dish pretty much. If the dals are soaked well, you wont be needing any water at all. Just take care not to run the mixie continuously, just pulse.

Remove the coarsely ground dal to a wide bowl, add chopped onion, chopped coriander leaves, shredded carrots, hing, haldi and salt. Mix well.
Make ping-ping sized balls of the mixture and steam cook it for 10 minutes. Once done, remove it from the steamer and serve warm with majjige huli/more kuzhambu or Neer majjige.