Osh-e-Meer

• Soak the red beans and chickpeas in water overnight. Next day, soak the black lentils for 1/2 hour and then combine all the lentils together. If you like, you can also add in some orange masoor dal as well as chana dal.
• Cook all the soaked lentils in a pressure cooker for about 2 whistles and 10 minutes on slow until they are almost cooked. Do not overcook as they will still cook when the other ingredients are being incorporated and you risk making them mushy.
• Soak the tamarind ball in hot water and squeeze out all the pulp
• Separately, fry the finely chopped onions until light brown. Add the garlic-cumin-green chillies paste, turmeric powder, black pepper powder, red chilli powder, sambhar masala and salt as per taste. Fry the masala well and then add finely chopped mint. Stir fry for a minute and leave aside.
• In a deep saucepan, bring the lentils to a slow boil, and add the spinach, amaranth (chawli) and dill. If you like, add the fenugreek (methi) now as well.
• Once the leaves start softening add the tamarind pulp and the fried onion spice mix. Add water (or stock), if required, and bring to a boil.
• Once the whole mixture comes to a boil, sprinkle chopped Meer which is cut in shape of noodles.
• Keep stirring the Osh while sprinkling the meer to avoid it being sucked to the bottom of the vessel.
• Keep stirring with a gentle hand till the Meer is cooked (around 5-7 min).
• Tasty yummy Osh-e-Meer is ready. Garnish with the hung curd, fried onion and coriander if you wish to. Serve hot with crusty bread in deep plates.

For Home-made Meer

• Prepare a dough of plain flour by adding little salt. Leave it aside for ½ hour.
• Make a few round thin chapattis depending on the quantity of dough. Sprinkle wheat flour liberally to dust the chapattis and, to ensure they do not stick together when stacked.
• Using a dough cutter (or a butter knife or any such) cut thin strips from the rolled- out dough to resemble noodles when cut. This is the Meer

Optional Notes

• Instead of spinach, you can also use baby spinach leaves and then you would not need to chop these.
• If you're going the meaty route, also separately pressure cook the mutton (3 whistles and 20 mins on slow is what works for me) and set aside along with the stock. Add this to the soup when adding the water/stock.
• If you are adding the beetroots, cut them into long french-fry type strips and cook separately and set it aside. Add them into the soup after the greens have cooked.
• You can replace the home-made Meer with dried Fettuccine. This will cook in the soup itself and you must not cook it separately or it will all turn to mush.