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Vegetarian cooking lesson 2

A cooking demonstration on preparing traditional Indian snacks and yoga tea.

"You can use any kind of lentil. Here we have moong dal, urad dal, and other kinds of dal, such as green dal, yellow, red, and also black-eyed beans."

"For yoga tea, we need spices. It is very good; it is an energy drink. Here we have cardamom, cloves, pepper, cinnamon, ginger."

Gaṅgā Devī from Croatia leads a practical cooking session at an international yoga seminar. She demonstrates how to make pakoras from soaked lentils and spices, a versatile chutney sauce, and a spiced yoga tea, explaining each ingredient and step in the process. The focus is on simple, wholesome recipes for energy and sharing.

Filming location: Vép, Hungary

I am Gaṅgā Devī from Croatia. We are at the VEP, the Yoga in Daily Life International Seminar. Today, we will prepare pakoras, chutney, and yoga tea. First, we begin with pakoras. Pakoras are a food made from lentils. You can use any kind of lentil. Here we have moong dal, urad dal, and other kinds of dal, such as green dal, yellow, red, and also black-eyed beans. First, soak all these lentils in water overnight. Soaking for three, four, or five hours is also sufficient. Afterwards, pour all the water out. Place the lentils in a bowl. After putting everything in, you can add salt. This can be Himalayan salt or sea salt. You can also add a little chili—chili powder or green chili—parsley, or any green herbs. You can put in garlic, just a little lemon juice, and also a small amount of asafoetida. Asafoetida is a spice very similar to garlic in aroma. Then, mix everything together in a blender. If the mixture is too hard, add just a few drops of water to give it a little more body. The pakora batter is now ready for frying. Heat oil until it is very hot. You can put the pakoras into the oil with a spoon or with your fingers. Using your fingers is easier and allows you to feel each pakora. They do not require much time—only a few minutes. Check the pakoras, and when they are sufficiently browned, you can take them out of the oil. They look like this. You can make them a little more or less brown according to your preference. This is a kind of snack. Place them on paper, and your pakoras are ready. If you wish to eat something with the pakoras, you can prepare chutney. Chutney is a kind of sauce or dip. You can put a little green chili inside and blend it. You can also add a little garlic and blend everything together. You can put parsley inside or any kind of green herb, such as green coriander or any fresh green leaves. You can also add nuts—any kind of nuts. Smash all these ingredients together very gently. Then, you can add a little salt and mix it all together. You can make this from any other vegetables as well—with tomato or with paprika. It looks like this when finished. You can put it in a small bowl or any container you have. Here, for example, we have only a few kinds of chutney. You see, it can be red or green; this one is with green herbs, with paprika, with tomato. These are two varieties. Next, we can prepare good yoga chai or yoga tea. For yoga tea, we need spices. It is very good; it is an energy drink. Here we have cardamom, cloves, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, and also cardamom like this—both powder and cardamom seeds. You can take whatever you like. Put approximately half a liter of water in a pot. Into this water, add black tea. It can be any kind of black tea. We have Taj Mahal here; it could also be Red Label or any black tea. For this half liter, use approximately three small teaspoons of black tea. We can also put in all these spices: a little bit of pepper, cinnamon. Then we will mix. Also, cardamom seeds. A handy blender is useful. This means the cardamom goes inside. You can add more or less cardamom, however you like. The skin of this type is small seeds. They are very tasty and very healthy. So we put the hard spices in. Then, also put all these seeds with their skin into the water. And also, you can add just a little cloves. Smash them, and then we wait for the water and all these spices to boil. After the water boils, we will add milk. If we have half a liter of water, we can add approximately half a liter of milk. Or you can add more or less; it depends on you. We wait. We can arrange our pakoras on a small plate along with all these chutneys, or one chutney. So, in our tea, we can put the spices all together, mixed. You can buy all these spices pre-mixed, or you can mix them beforehand, store them, and have them ready for every day. It is a good energy drink. You can drink this special beverage all day at work when you need some energy. Cover the pot and wait until it boils again. Once it boils, you can turn off the heat. Pour the tea. You can put it in a thermos or any container, or serve it immediately in a cup—it depends on your preference. You can put it in a thermos and have it for the whole day. In a cup, it looks like coffee, but only in appearance. This is more flavorful. You can add sugar inside, or you can drink it without any sweetener. So here, for a snack, you have nice chai, pakoras, and chutney. You can invite your guests or enjoy it for yourself.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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