Before You Start
A bowl of misal pav is put together from two cooked components that stay apart until the last moment. First comes a mild curry of sprouted moth beans, the usal. Poured over it is a second gravy, far hotter, called kat or rassa, and a fistful of crisp farsan goes on at the end. The arrangement has a clear logic. Body and protein come from the usal, heat and depth from the kat, and texture from the farsan, which stays crunchy for only a few minutes once it meets the liquid. That short window explains why misal is eaten quickly and why stalls build each bowl to order.
Within Maharashtra the dish changes noticeably from town to town. Kolhapuri misal is darker, oilier and much fiercer, based on goda masala or kala masala, with a shining layer of red chilli oil floating over it. In Pune the gravy is usually gentler and a little sweeter, and the topping tends to be heavy on sev, while Nashik and other districts keep their own house styles. The version below follows Kolhapur, since that is the one people mean when they speak of misal as a serious test of heat, and it explains how to tone it down for a milder table.
Where It Comes From
No single cook is known to have invented misal pav. It came out of Maharashtrian home cooking and neighbourhood eateries, and writers on the region's food generally explain it as the result of using sprouted beans, an inexpensive, nutritious and easily bought staple, as the foundation for a fast, filling morning meal. Colleen Taylor Sen and other historians of Indian regional cooking observe that sprouted and fermented pulses have a long place in the kitchens of Maharashtra and the Deccan more broadly, which fits a climate and economy in which dried legumes were available year round more reliably than fresh greens. Serving it with pav, and not with rice or roti, links its rise to the urban culture of Mumbai and Pune in the colonial period that also produced vada pav and pav bhaji, a time when soft yeasted bread, brought by the Portuguese, had turned into a cheap and quick staple throughout western India. Kolhapur and Pune each hold a strong local pride in their own misal, and writers on the dish do not regard either city's claim to the first version as settled.
How to Make It
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Prep
Soak the beans and coax out the sprouts
Cover the moth beans with a generous amount of water and let them stand eight hours, or through the night. Pour off the water and keep the beans warm for another half day to a full day, either bundled loosely in damp muslin or sitting in a colander under a wet towel. Small white sprouts should appear in that time, though cooler weather slows them. Stop once each sprout is clearly there but still short, before it stretches into a long tail.
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Cook
Prepare the kat paste
Toast the dried chillies and coriander seeds in a dry pan for about two minutes, until the kitchen smells of them. Put in the coconut next and toast one minute more, until pale gold; coconut scorches in a moment, so stay beside the pan. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then purée it with the chopped onion, the garlic and a little water into a thick, smooth paste.
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Cook
Fry the paste and simmer the kat
Warm the oil in a pan, add the purée and fry it on medium-low heat, stirring frequently, for ten to twelve minutes. It is ready when it has gone dark, smells deep and no trace of raw onion is left. A long fry like this is what builds richness in the kat and takes away any sharp, raw bite. Add the water, let it simmer ten minutes, and put it aside to be ladled over the top later as the spicy rassa.
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Cook
Begin the usal
Use a second pan for this part. Warm the oil, then crackle the mustard seeds and curry leaves in it. The onion goes in next, cooked to a golden shade, followed by the ginger-garlic paste for about a minute, until its raw smell has gone. Stir in the tomato and let it break down to a soft pulp, then add turmeric, goda masala and chilli powder and cook another minute.
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Cook
Simmer the sprouted beans
Tip in the sprouts and stir them around until the masala clings. Pour in the water, add salt and bring it to the boil, then lower the heat and let it bubble gently for a quarter to a third of an hour. The sprouts should be tender yet intact, never mushy. Aim for a fairly loose curry and not a thick mash, because this layer sits underneath the kat.
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Serve
Put each bowl together
Spoon hot usal into the bowl, then pour a generous amount of the boiling kat on top and let it gather at the edges. Shower farsan, raw chopped onion and coriander over the surface and bring it to the table right away with a lime wedge and buttered, toasted pav. The farsan must still be crisp when eaten, so nothing is assembled until the moment of serving.
Swaps That Work
When moth beans are out of reach, sprouted moong gives a decent result with a slightly sweeter taste, and boiled whole moong from a can or from your own pot will do in an emergency, with no sprouting required. Goda masala, the Maharashtrian blend, is hard to reproduce exactly, but ordinary garam masala with an additional pinch of cinnamon and black pepper lands near it. Shop-bought sev or mixed Bombay mix takes the place of home-made farsan without complaint.
Turning the Heat Up or Down
Almost all of the heat in misal is concentrated in the kat, which makes that the easiest component to adjust. A milder bowl calls for mostly Kashmiri chillies, bright red but mild, plus only one or two of the fiery varieties. A proper Kolhapuri-strength misal uses more of the hot chillies, and a thin film of red oil should rise to the surface of the kat as it simmers, a sign that it has come to full strength. Passing the kat separately, rather than pouring it on in the kitchen, lets each diner choose their own level.
Where Cooks Go Wrong
Sprouting for too long is a common slip. Once the tail lengthens, the bean tastes bitter and loses its firmness, so stop when the tail has barely emerged. Hurrying the kat is another: unless the onion, garlic and coconut paste is fried for its full ten to twelve minutes on a low flame, the gravy has a raw, harsh taste instead of a deep, rounded one. Putting the farsan on early is the third, as it goes limp before the bowl is eaten, so it should be added in the final second, over the hot usal and kat.
Keeping and Warming Up Leftovers
To keep: Refrigerate the usal and the kat separately in sealed containers, where each holds for as long as three days and often tastes better after a night. Do not keep them mixed together or already crowned with farsan; assemble fresh portions from the cold components every time. Sprouts that have not yet been cooked stay usable in the refrigerator for about two days.
To warm up: Warm each component on its own in a pan over medium heat, thinning with a little water if the fridge has thickened it, and stir until it is hot throughout. Only after reheating should you combine them and add new farsan, onion and coriander, so the crunch survives the trip to the table.
Safe Handling
Sprouting raw legumes in a warm room can encourage bacteria if the beans stay too warm or are left too long. Keep sprouting to between twelve and twenty-four hours, rinse the beans at least once on the way, and discard a batch that smells sour or off instead of fresh and a little nutty. After cooking, the usal and the kat are ordinary legume and spice dishes: cool them and refrigerate within about two hours, as you would any bean curry, and heat them until they steam before serving.
Where to Read More
- Colleen Taylor Sen, "Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India" (Reaktion Books) — on sprouted and fermented pulses as a staple of Maharashtrian and Deccan home cooking.
- K.T. Achaya, "Indian Food: A Historical Companion" (Oxford University Press) — on regional spice blends including goda masala and their role in Maharashtrian cuisine.