Mungbean, chickpea and cowpea seeds were procured from
the department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Punjab
Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India. The seeds were
germinated in a seed germinator at 25 °C and 70% relative
humidity. The sprouts were then subjected to two hydrothermal
treatments under optimized conditions shown in
Tables 1 and 2. One hundred grams of raw mungbean,
chickpea and cowpea were soaked for 10, 12 and 8 h prior
to germination for three time periods for each legume
(Table 1). 250 g of sprouts from each legume were
subjected to two hydrothermal treatments namely pressure
cooking at 15 pound pressure and microwave cooking at
800 W. The cooking time of mungbean and cowpea was 1
and 7 min for pressure cooking and microwave cooking,
respectively while for chickpea, it was 5 and 15 min for the
two treatments. The samples of each legume after soaking,
after germination for three time periods and after two
hydrothermal treatments were dried in hot air oven at 60 °C
till constant weight. The dried samples were ground into
fine powder to pass through 5 mm sieve and preserved in
150 gauge polythene bags and stored at ambient conditions
(20 °C, 60% RH) for analysis.