Sprouted Mung Bean Salad with Spicy Clementine Dressing

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I'm such a winter person. Winter means hot spicy comfort food, standing near the stove while cooking a pot full of soup, hot chocolate every morning, lying on the bed all day with a warm cozy blanket and not worrying about what to wear at work (everything can hide behind a coat including the not so in place curves). Yes its all about eating, hiding curves and sleeping. Not very ideal I see. 

Of course because its all God's big plan, M has to be a summer person. He catches cold even before winter has had a chance to declare its presence. He can't stand being house arrested doing nothing, doesn't care much for soups and hates wearing winter clothes. He misses being outdoors working out and playing sports. Yeah, ideal. 

But when the temperature went as low as -1 C without any warning couple of days ago, I wanted to switch back to summer too. Winter in Kuwait is generally moderately cold between 1- 15 C which I understand is almost spring in some part of the world!

Since I can't bring summer just yet, a colorful salad certainly brings a little sunshine on a grey day. This salad is based on a very basic Indian sprouted mung bean salad which uses a simple lemon juice dressing. But since clementine and I are married now, I use it in everything that may or may not require citrus. Salads for me need to have a little sweetness and I'm guilty of adding a touch of sugar or fruit to almost any salad I make but using sweet clementine adds a natural sweetness which is so satisfying and balances the flavors.

Sprouted mung beans are more nutritious than the whole dried bean. In the process of sprouting the vitamins, proteins and minerals increase substantially with corresponding decrease in calories and carbohydrate content. It also breaks the complex compounds into simple form, making it available to be eaten raw. The sprout itself has minerals and vitamin which the seed won't have like Vitamin C. Though many lentils can be sprouted,  mung beans are easiest to digest because of its natural composition.

Sprouted Mung Bean Salad with Spicy Clementine Dressing

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients

1/2 cup sprouted mung beans*

1 granny smith apple, finely cubed

1 tomato, finely cubed

1 clementine

1/2 red onion finely chopped (about 1/8 cup)

1/8 cup coriander leaves, finely chopped

For dressing

1/8 cup clementine juice (or adjust to how you like your salad)

1 green chilly, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Note

* You can also use boiled whole mung beans

Method

Mix all the ingredients for salad. This is a very basic recipe and you can easily add other ingredients like shredded beetroot, cucumber, radishes etc to the recipe. You can also adjust the amount of ingredients as per your liking and availability.

For the dressing, whisk together all the ingredients and drizzle over the salad when ready to serve.