Pigeon pea (kandi, toor)
Cajanus cajan
Fabaceae
Indian subcontinent; domesticated in peninsular India at least 3,500 years ago, now grown across Africa and the Caribbean
20.5000° N, 84.5000° E · Eastern peninsular India (Odisha)
A woody, drought-hardy shrub, 1–3 m tall, with a deep taproot, trifoliate leaves and yellow or yellow-and-red pea flowers. The pods hold four to six round seeds, cream to brown. The seed split and skinned is kandi pappu (toor dal / arhar dal), the everyday dal of Telangana. Green pods are eaten as a vegetable in season. The plant lives more than one year but is usually grown as a 5–8 month crop.
How it grows
Kandi is the classic rain-fed pulse of the Deccan. It is sown with the first monsoon rains in June–July, usually as an intercrop in rows between jowar, cotton or groundnut, because it grows slowly at first and takes 150–240 days to mature. The taproot goes deep and finds water after the rains stop, so the crop flowers and fills pods in the dry cool months (November–January). Like all pulses it fixes nitrogen; its leaf fall and deep roots leave the soil better. Pod borer is the farmer's main enemy.
Grow at home
1. Kandi needs ground and a full season — a bed or a very large tub.
2. Sow whole seed from a farm shop (kitchen dal is split) 3 cm deep, 40 cm apart, in June–July.
3. Water only until established; then leave it to the rains and the taproot.
4. Plants flower in November. Pick green pods to eat as a vegetable, or leave to dry.
5. Harvest dry pods in January–February. The shrub will give a second, smaller crop if cut back.
Harvest
Cut the plants when three-quarters of the pods are brown and dry, stack them in the sun for a week, then beat out the seed and winnow. Sun-dry the seed for two or three more days. Whole kandi stores for a year; split dal (kandi pappu) is best used within six months before it loses its cooking quality. Traditionally the seed is oiled lightly with a little castor or sesame oil before storage to keep weevils off.
Lore
Kandi pappu is the dal of the Telugu everyday plate — with gongura, with tomato, with drumstick, with just tamarind and a popu. A meal is "pappu annam" before anything else. Village kitchens speak of kandi as warming and filling, the pulse for working people, and prefer it to the lighter pesara for the main meal. The green pods roasted in the field fire (kandi kaya) are a winter treat children remember. These are family and regional traditions; the nutrition is measured (see the ingredient), the rest is memory.