Types of Pulses (Visual)

Whenever I walk into an Indian grocery, I'm always drawn to the aisle with the pulses. Pulses are a category for what we think of as lentils, beans, legumes, peas, etc. When I was reading Indian for Everyone (Anupy Singla), she had this absolutely wonderful visual guide to the different types of pulses. I'm invariably confused as to what the different types are, especially because it's all in Hindi. I can recognize some by sight, but not all. Plus... the recognition-by-sight method definitely failed me recently, when I thought that what I had bought was azuki beans. Turns out they were sabut urad, or whole black dal (top left in the picture). That was an embarrassing mistake.

No more mistakes! I snapped some pictures of the visuals and put them together in a quick reference chart. The chart includes both Hindi and English names for some popular pulses: sabut urad (whole black dal), urad dal chilka (split black dal), urad dal duhli, sabut moong dal (whole green dal), moong dal chilka (split green dal), moong dal duhli, sabut masoor dal (whole masoor lentils), masoor dal duhli (red split lentils), sabut toor dal (whole toor dal), duhli toor dal (split toor dal), kala chana (black chickpeas), chana dal (split black chickpeas), kabuli chana (chickpeas) and red kidney beans.

Take note that there are typically different ways of spelling the Hindi versions of names using the English alphabet. I've seen dal/dahl/dhal as well as moong/mung.

Enjoy!