Road to a Bachelor's Kitchen : Weekend special - Punjabi Chole

Being a non-vegetarian by choice, it has been always a dream to get my refrigerator filled up with only chicken and associates; the farther my hands could reach. But having said that I also had developed a taste for all the vegetarian cuisines cooked by mom and perhaps reminded me of them all the time. “Chole curry (White Chick Peas)”, topped the list in this regard. Starting from the phase when mom soaks “chole” into water till the final phase of “seasoning”, I use to remain clinged to the kitchen sil. But now work life has sent me distant apart from such adventures. But wait, because I got a solution. Why shouldn’t I make it on my own? Perhaps it might taste exactly or tending to what mom cooks. So here it is:

Let’s list down all the ingredients:

a.       Half-cup of White Chick peas (enough for 2-3 people) but then make lots it won’t go wasted.

b.      3-4 cups of water

c.       1 tea-bag

d.      2 grated onions + 2-3 grated tomatoes (‘Grating’ implies ‘Thickness in curry’)

e.      ginger-garlic paste, turmeric-green chilli-coriander(dhania)-cumin(jeera)-salt-chana masala

f.        Bay leaves + dry chilli

Let’s begin:

First we shall get the chick peas ready. It is advised to soak the peas 6-7 hours before cooking. However we shall heat them in a pressure cooker to render the softness as required. Now here comes the most important part and that is 1 tea bag. Well I use it to provide ‘dark appearance to the curry’ so it is used only for colour purpose. Add the tag bag to the peas-water mixture along with a 1.5 teaspoon of salt. Turn off the flame after 4-5 whistles, take out the tea bag and leave it to cool down.

Now we shall heat some oil in a vessel under medium flame and to it bay leaves and dry chilli will be added. As the colour of the chillies turn dark, cumin seeds will be added and cooked until the kitchen is filled with its aroma. Next comes the usual ginger-garlic paste and followed by grated onions and they are cooked until the onions turn golden brown. And there goes grated tomatoes to the mixture along with some finely chopped green chillies. We shall not add salt as of now because it was added while boiling the peas and most of the spices have implicit salt tastemakers.

After 5-6 minutes of cooking, the tomatoes shall start leaving the oil around it. This is the moment when the peas-water mixture will be added. Keeping the flame on medium mode, the mixture will be cooked for about 10-15 minutes. After this, 1 tea spoon of chana masala will be added to it and cooked for another 15-20 minutes with lid closed on high flame. However one can open up the lid and smash some peas (to add up to the thickness) in regular intervals. And it’s all done.

Allow it to cool down and then garnish with coriander leaves. This dish goes well along with many alternatives. One can eat this with rice or with bread but the best goes along with “bhature”. So grab along the recipe and render your weekend to be less boring.