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Sorrel Leaves has a natural tanginess. Gongura is a plant grown for its edible leaves in India. Gongura comes in 2 varieties green stemmed leaf and red stemmed leaf. The red stemmed leaves are more sour than the green ones. Sorrel leaf is known as Gongura in Telugu, pulicha keerai in Tamil and Pitwaa in Hindi. We need to balance the salt and spices with the tanginess from the gongura in this dal for it to be really delicious; otherwise you will end up with a super tangy pappu.

We can make many wonderful recipes with Gongura (Sorrel) leaves. One such yummy recipe is this Gongura Pappu. Pappu is an integral part of Lunch Menu in Andhra Cuisine. We can even say that an Andhra meal is incomplete without a dal dish cooked with some veggie.

Pappu (Dal):

Toor Daal (Kandi Pappu) or Moong Daal (Pesara Pappu) cooked with a vegetable or green. Generally masala is not added to the dal. Some regions include garlic and onion in the seasoning while some regions prefer asafetida (hing). Toor dal is often cooked with leafy vegetables like Palakura (spinach), Gongura, malabar spinach, and vegetables such as tomato and mango. Sometimes the cooked version of the dal is replaced with a roast and ground version of the dal like Kandi pachadi (roasted toor daal ground with red chiles) and pesara pachadi (soaked moong daal ground with red chilies or green chilies).

Variations in Gongura Pappu

We can bring in many variations in Gongura Pappu.

Many Andhra people like to add cooked peanuts along with their Gongura Pappu. One of my neighbor, soak 1 handfuls of raw peanuts overnight and pressure cook it along with toor dal and add it to the cooked Gongura pappu.
Gongura leaves itself has the sourness nature in it and hence most of the time we don't add additional tamarind or tomato to Gongura recipes. Even when we make Gongura Pulihora, the tanginess is only from the gongura leaves and we don't add tamarind.
We can combine jeera, coconut and green chili and make a paste and add it to the dal

You can also try:

Recipe Card:

Method with Step by Step Pictures:

PREPARING GONGURA LEAVES

Pluck the leaves out of the Gongura Bunch and wash it thorougly.

Roughly chop the Gongura Leaves and set it aside. The Gongura leaves has sourness in it and hence we need to use only 2 cups or less. If we add more leaves then we need to increase other spices accordingly

COOKING DAL

Take Toor dal in a vessel and add turmeric powder and water and pressure cook for 4 whistles
Once the dal is cooked, mash the cooked dal and set it aside

TEMPERING PROCESS

Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds and cumin seeds and allow it to sputter
Then add curry leaves, red chili, green chili and saute for a minute

COOKING GONGURA DAL

Once we are done with tempering, add the sliced onions and saute the onions till translucent

Add Chopped Gongura leaves and saute for a minute. Add ½ cup of water and cook the leaves for about 5-7 mins in medium to low flame

Then once the leaves are tender and the water is absorbed, add the mashed dal and give a good mix. Add Salt and give a final mix. Cook in low flame for 5 more mins and then switch off the flame