My fenugreek may be your methi. The aromatic, cuboid seeds of Trigonella foenum-graecum—a clover-like legume whose botanical name translates as Greek hay—are used as a spice in food traditions spanning South and West Asia, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Sprouted, the seeds are an accessible and easy way of growing your own fenugreek microgreens, and allow you to enjoy its friendly aroma and nuttily bitter, green-tonic flavor, even if you don’t have a garden, or if it is the middle of winter. A lush tray of fenugreek seedlings on a windowsill is a satisfying thing when the world is frozen.
Methi is a pan-South Asian term for the plant, and hilbeh is transliterated from Arabic. The Turkish name is çemen. The plant is probably native to the broad region encompassing Southern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and West Asia. Fenugreek smells, to me, like the Westernized commercial Indian curry powders I grew up with, long before learning that “curry” is a catchall for a complex array of dishes in a flock of cultural traditions. The smell of fenugreek is often described as strongly reminiscent of maple syrup—compelling.
Fenugreek makes a good cover crop, since the legume fixes nitrogen in the soil, as well as a green vegetable: the well-known Indian aloo methi combines the tender stems and leaves of fenugreek (methi) with potatoes. (Years ago, it was Madhur Jaffrey’s memoir, Climbing the Mango Trees, that gave me a longing for fresh fenugreek greens.)
And it is with potatoes that I like to deploy my own microgreens: with warm baby potatoes, eggs, and vivid turmeric butter. The fresh greens add their powerfully sweet aroma along with their much-appreciated trace of bitterness to a plate that brims with functional food goodness.
To make your own fenugreek microgreens no special equipment is required. No soil, no pot with drainage. I use a ceramic tray, but a shallow soup bowl, or enamelware would work, too.
The seeds are soaked, covered for three days (to create a dark environment), and then uncovered and placed somewhere bright. You only add water when it threatens to dry up, keeping the sprouting seeds very lightly moist. As to where to find fenugreek seeds for growing the microgreens, I have been very lucky with store-bought spices—100 percent germination rate, in fact, which surprised me. They are also available online especially for sprouting.
