Fresh Methi / Fenugreek Leaves

Large Methi Seeds Growing After Just A Few Days

The other day I was looking at an Indian recipe on one of my favourite group of Indian recipe blogs. The recipe required fresh methi (fenugreek) leaves "or dried is being not most excellent".

Our nearest source of relatively 'fresh' dried Indian ingredients is about 150km away and there is an 'English' store here in the village that has a not bad range of essentials for Indian/Pakistani/Chinese/Thai cooking given the relative remoteness of where we live. Plus it is getting better and they are able to get most things at a relatively good price. The alternative is a large store in the centre of Seville (about 2+ hours fast drive away) or a rather mediocre place towards Gibraltar.

Looking at my stocks of ingredients I noted I had fenugreek seeds so, after checking a bit on the interwebtubenets realised that these will grow very easily in our terrace. Further, there are many people who grow little pots on their window sills in less sunnier climes with great success. Simply soak the seeds in water for 24-36 hours and they start to sprout. I now have a couple of pots I have just planted on the terrace and am supremely confident that I will have fresh fenugreek for cooking in about two weeks or perhaps less based on their growth rate. Useful tip as fenugreek adds quite a bit to many dishes. Fresh is even better of course.

Incidentally, there are some people who actually let the sprouts of fenugreek grow like beansprouts and eat them in a similar manner. So, I opened up the one packet of fenugreek seeds from the local store plus some of the larger ones I brought back from Pakistan (five years ago) and dropped them into saucers of water. Sure enough, they both started sprouting so I stuck them into their individual pots. See above and below for the results after but a few days. Next time I will aim to get better distribution around the pot... :-)

Small methi seeds growing after just a few days