Last week I wrote about sprouting chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and other beans for added protein. My other favourite sprouts are fenugreek and alfalfa, which I use to add green veges to meals if the garden isn’t producing enough.
The green sprouts take longer than the beans because you need to wait for the green leaves to appear, but the process is the same. Although you don’t have to soak the smaller seeds for as long, it doesn’t matter if you do (I find 12 hours is a pretty convenient time period between other things that I’m doing, like working or sleeping).
I only put a few tablespoons in the jar and watched as the tails (roots) appear, followed by the leaves, until they are about 3-4cm long sprouts. I am always amazed by the increase in size, it seems like every time I remove some sprouts from the jar to eat them, the jar is full again by the next day! It takes several days of regular sprout eating to empty the jar. This is a good thing if you have many sprout eaters to feed, but I can get really getting sick of it (and sneaking them onto Pete’s plate too, he is very tolerant of my weird food ways now). So let this be a warning to you, don’t put too many seeds in the jar!
I have also tried sprouting mung beans for green sprouts, but I find that they don’t ALL sprout (or from the 5kg bag I have, that is the case), so you end up with unsprouted hard beans in your sprouts and if you don’t pick them out very carefully, it can be rather unpleasant to bite down on a hard mung bean in your salad! Possibly this isn't a problem with all mung beans, but right now I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the 5kg....
What do you sprout? Any tips?
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| the sprouts ready to eat |
I only put a few tablespoons in the jar and watched as the tails (roots) appear, followed by the leaves, until they are about 3-4cm long sprouts. I am always amazed by the increase in size, it seems like every time I remove some sprouts from the jar to eat them, the jar is full again by the next day! It takes several days of regular sprout eating to empty the jar. This is a good thing if you have many sprout eaters to feed, but I can get really getting sick of it (and sneaking them onto Pete’s plate too, he is very tolerant of my weird food ways now). So let this be a warning to you, don’t put too many seeds in the jar!
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| see how they filled the jar!! |
The other lesson I’ve learnt about sprouting is that you may just get a bad batch of old seeds that will not sprout. My first attempt at fenugreek did not sprout and I didn’t know what was wrong until a friend gave me some of her seeds and they sprouted perfectly. It turned out not to be anything I was doing wrong. Just something to keep in mind if your sprouts aren’t sprouting.
I have also tried sprouting mung beans for green sprouts, but I find that they don’t ALL sprout (or from the 5kg bag I have, that is the case), so you end up with unsprouted hard beans in your sprouts and if you don’t pick them out very carefully, it can be rather unpleasant to bite down on a hard mung bean in your salad! Possibly this isn't a problem with all mung beans, but right now I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the 5kg....
What do you sprout? Any tips?
Clever Chicks Blog Hop
Simple Saturdays Blog Hop
From the Farm Blog Hop
Homestead Barn Hop
The HomeAcre Hop
I am also loving sprouting and microgreens right now. I found that fenugreek required the most amount of rinsing for some reason. If your mung beans dont sprout you can use them instead of lentils to make dahl.
ReplyDeleteAh Fenugreek! It's a legume I was surprised to discover. It also has a gelatinous part to it, a bit like Linseed but not as severe. That's why it takes a lot of rinsing. No doubt there's a proper word for that jelly-like goop!
ReplyDeleteMung Beans are a right pain. All those green testas (seed coats). No they don't all sprout at once but neither do any other seeds. Although with some effort you can rinse off most of the testas on Alfalfa (Lucerne), rinsing off the Mung Bean ones is at best tricky.
Simplest solution I have found is to micro-green them rather than just sprout them. As sprouts, you are mainly eating the radicle (young root) and stem. As micro-greens you eat the stem and leaves with bonus chlorophyll.
You could make dhal I guess but you've still got to rinse off those testas. Lentils for sprouting (as all seeds for sprouting) need their testas but the Lentil ones are quite soft and no problem at all.
One good reason to micro-green Sunflower and Buckwheat is the testas are very tough but then they are fairly easily picked off on harvest. Or if you leave the microgreens long enough, the testas pop off of their own accord.