A bitter, slightly sweet seed that holds a dish together from underneath.
In the pot
The seeds are hard and assertive, so use them in small numbers. Six or eight seeds in hot ghee at the start of a pot is often enough. Let them darken but not blacken, or the whole dish turns bitter.
In my mother’s kitchen, fenugreek went into the tempering for green vegetables, never measured, always counted. The leaves, methi, are a vegetable in their own right and cook down like spinach.
In the body
Fenugreek is bitter and pungent, and it suits kapha (the earth and water constitution) particularly well. It supports digestion and is one of the spices traditionally given to new mothers and to anyone whose system has slowed down.
I soak a teaspoon of seeds overnight in water and drink the water in the morning when I have been sitting too much. The seeds I add to the next pot of dal so nothing is wasted.
