Packed with nutrition and flavor, these are high fiber mini pizzas that take some effort to make, but are so worth it! With the goodness of greens like spinach and fenugreek (methi), the heartiness of millet and kidney beans and the tanginess of the cucumber, carrot, tomato salad, this is a visual and culinary treat. Enjoy it for lunch or as a snack! I tend to avoid legumes like kidney beans for dinner since they are harder to digest and tend to produce flatulence, which may disrupt sleep.
Ingredients:
For the high fibre pizza base:
- Jowar (white millet) flour (2 cups)
- Salt
- Warm water (as needed – approximately 1 cup)
- Oil (1 tsp)
For the spinach – kidney beans topping:
- Spinach leaves – chopped finely or coarsely (2 cups)
- Fenugreek (methi) leaves – chopped finely or coarsely (you may use other greens like kale, swiss chard, collard etc.) (1 cup)
- Red/white Onions or green onions (1/2 cup)
- Tomatoes – chopped finely (1/2 cup)
- Rajma (red kidney beans) (soaked overnight and cooked)
- Cumin seeds (1 tsp)
- Oil (1 tsp)
- Coriander powder (1 tbsp)
- Red chilli powder (1 tsp)
- Garam masala powder (1 tsp)
- Salt to taste
For the salad topping:
- Shredded carrots (3/4th cup)
- Finely chopped tomatoes (3/4th cup)
- Finely chopped onions (1 tbsp) (optional)
- Finely chopped cucumbers (3/4th cup)
- Chaat masala (1 tbsp)
- Black salt (1 tsp)
- Black pepper powder (1 tsp)
- Lemon juice (1 tsp)
- Sugar to taste
Method:
For the spinach – kidney beans topping:
- Add oil to a pan and turn on medium heat.
- When the oil is warm, add cumin seeds.
- When the seeds start crackling, add onions and cook until translucent.
- Add the greens, tomatoes and all the spice powders.
- Add the cooked kidney beans and mash them slightly so that they blend in with the gravy.
- Cook until the extra water evaporates otherwise, the pizza may become soggy.
For the salad topping:
- Mix all the ingredients and adjust tastes according to personal preference
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For the pizza base:
- Mix the millet flour, water, salt and keep kneading until the dough comes together into a well formed ball.
- Add oil and mix again. Ensure that the dough isn’t too dry; otherwise, the bread/bhakhris/base will crack as you shape them on your palm.
- Apply a thin coating of oil on your palm. Take a small ball (maybe 3/4th inch diameter) and flatten it on your palm.
- Then gradually, peel the flattened dough from your palm and carefully transfer it onto a heated griddle/tava (heat should be medium, not too high, so that the bread has enough time to cook fully before getting burned.
- Apply drops of water on the upper face of the bread while the lower side is cooking. After putting a few drops of water, spread it using your fingers or a spoon.
- Carefully, lift the bread and cook the other side. Repeat the process of applying water to the upper face now.
- After a few minutes (may 3-4 mins on a medium flame), you will see the bread has turned a golden brown color and has some spots on it indicating that it has been cooked. Flatten it with a ladle, ensuring that the entire surface gets even heat and take off the tava.
- Apply ghee/clarified butter immediately on the hot bread. Keep aside and start assembling the pizza.
Assembly:
- Keep the base ready on a plate. Add a tbsp. or so (depending on the size of your base and your personal preference, you can adjust this amount) of spinach – kidney beans topping.
- Add a tbsp. or so of the salad topping and serve immediately.
Sweet (millet, ghee, sugar) sour (tomatoes, lemon juice), salty (black and regular salt), pungent (cumin, onions, pepper), bitter (fenugreek), astringent (spinach).
Millet is slightly pitta provoking in nature. But the cooling spinach and cucumber should balance the heating effect of the millet.
Salads and kidney beans can be reduced for vatas, since both may cause flatulence, being harder to digest. You can use generous amounts of ghee for the bread since these people need as much oleation as possible.
For kaphas also, with their slow and steady digestive fires, the harder to digest kidney beans and salad can be reduced. Millet is kapha pacifying even though it is sweet in taste, due to its heating quality and also because it is dry and light, unlike other heavier grains like wheat. Likewise, you can reduce the ghee for kaphas too. This is a good dish to make during spring.
Effects on the Mind (Gunas – Qualities):
This is sattvic, but if spices/onions are overdone, can be rajasic in nature. If you use canned kidney beans, or make a batch of toppings and bread, refrigerate, reheat and prepare it on the next day, the tamasic quality of this dish will increase. Try using fresh ingredients and serve as soon as you prepare it.
Dry, warm, not too light and not too heavy (because of the mix of millet, which is light and kidney beans, which is heavy).
Ingredients that tend to produce heating effect are oil, tomatoes, millet, pepper, carrots, onions. Ingredients that tend to produce cooling effect are cucumber, spinach, fenugreek.
Overall the effect is balanced between heating and cooling since we have a good mix of both types of ingredients.