Horse Gram (Gahat): Benefits of the Himalayan Bean

Gahat is the Nepali name for horse gram (Macrotyloma uniflorum), a small, flattish bean that ranges from reddish-brown to nearly black. In parts of India it's called kulthi or hurali, and it grows well in dry, rocky, high-altitude soil where other legumes struggle. That's exactly why it became such a fixture in the hills.

At Danphe we stock the Annapurna Horse Gram (Gahat), the same bean you'd find drying on a mat outside a house in the mid-hills. It sits in our beans aisle alongside other Himalayan varieties, because gahat rarely travels alone in a Nepali pantry.

Horse gram is one of the highest-protein legumes commonly eaten in Himalayan cooking, typically running in the range of 20 to 22 grams of protein per 100 grams dry weight. That puts it in the same conversation as rajma and other kidney beans, and ahead of most dals gram for gram.

It's also dense in dietary fibre, which is part of why a bowl of gahat ko dal feels so filling on a cold day, and it carries a solid amount of iron and calcium for a plant food. Like any dried legume, the numbers on the package are for the raw, uncooked bean; cooking with the soaking water absorbed changes the per-serving math.

If you're comparing where your protein comes from across the pantry, our dal & lentils protein guide lines up gahat against toor, moong, chana and rajma so you can see where it actually sits.

In Jumla and the western hills, gahat is cooked much like any other dal: soaked, boiled soft, and finished with ghee, garlic, and a tempering of cumin and dried chili. It has a slightly earthier, nuttier flavour than moong or masoor, and it holds its shape a bit more than moong daal does.

It also shows up in kwati, the mixed nine-bean soup Newari families cook for Gunla and Janai Purnima, where gahat sits alongside soybean, black gram, and other Himalayan beans in one pot. Our DRUKCAN Mixed Beans (Kwati) is the ready-made version of that mix if you want to skip sourcing nine separate beans yourself.

Some hill households also toast gahat and grind it into a coarse flour used in soups and porridges during winter, prized for being warming, filling, and cheap to keep on hand through the cold months.

Gahat is a harder bean than most lentils, so give it a proper soak: 8 hours or overnight in plenty of water. Skipping this step means a much longer simmer and a less even texture.

After soaking, drain and rinse, then simmer in fresh water for 45 to 60 minutes until tender, skimming off any foam early on. A pressure cooker cuts this down to roughly 20 to 25 minutes at pressure, which is how most home cooks in Nepal actually get through a weeknight.

For the finish, heat ghee or mustard oil with cumin seeds, garlic, ginger, and chopped tomato, then fold in the cooked beans and simmer another 10 minutes so the flavours settle. Serve it the way you'd serve any dal, ladled over rice with a side of achar. If you want the basic method spelled out step by step, our Nepali dal recipe walks through the same technique, and it works for gahat with only minor timing adjustments.

Gahat is firmer and earthier than rajma, cooks faster than whole black gram, and has more protein per 100g than most rice-and-dal staples. It's closer in role to the other Jumla beans we carry, like Annapurna Mix Jumla Simi and Annapurna Jumla Red Beans (Rato Simi), which come from the same high-altitude growing regions and share that dense, slow-food character.

If you're building out a proper Himalayan bean and lentil shelf, our Jumla beans guide covers gahat alongside simi varieties in more depth, and the dal varieties compared post is useful if you're deciding between gahat, toor daal, and chana for a specific recipe.

For households mixing plant and animal protein, it's also worth knowing how gahat stacks up against something like Authentic Buff Sukuti; our sukuti nutrition guide breaks down the dried-meat side of that comparison.

Gahat isn't something you'll find at a regular Canadian supermarket, which is exactly the gap Danphe exists to fill. We ship the Annapurna Horse Gram (Gahat) and the rest of our Himalayan bean lineup from our Vancouver shop to all 10 provinces and 3 territories.

Standard shipping runs $5 to $10 and takes 5 to 10 business days, with free delivery on orders over $35 within central Metro Vancouver, where we also offer same-day delivery by phone. For the full picture of how our nationwide grocery delivery works, see Nepali & Indian grocery delivery across Canada.