Chole Palak, not an authentic Punjabi recipe

This is an old post, that almost got lost in the archives of my word documents. It was written in response to Supriya's query if I had the recipe for chole palak on the blog. The chole palak in question were the pairing for the Tibetan bread that he had made. This then, is the old write up with some new reference added in for freshness.

What kind of chole masala do you use? If it is the store bought, then what brand do you prefer? I prefer Sanjeev Kapoor’s Chole Masala. It doesn’t have too much salt and the spices smell fresh. If you make your chole masala at home by roasting and grinding spices, then please share and send it to Aqua, who is hosting this month’s B2B for me. Interested to host it, email me here.

In the past, my attempts at making authentic Punjabi chole, the kind that are immersed in thick, black gravy and the garbanzo beans so soft you could break them with the touch of your tooth, have failed miserably. Before you ask or venture, yes, I have tried Anita’s recipe and mine didn’t even come close to what hers looked like and I am pretty sure they didn’t taste like hers either. I will chalk it to my inability to follow a recipe to a T or the lack of patience with the bhunoeing of the spices.

Recently, Manisha wondered here why the chole gravy needed to be black?  I have not the faintest clue. For me, it brings back memories of lunches I have had as a teenager at Pujabi friend’s homes. The chole were almost always served with white bread and I have to admit the combination was awesome. To this day, if I am eating chole by myself, I toast two pieces of thick sourdough bread to eat with it.

But I digress. A few months ago, in an attempt to finish off a bunch of spinach leaves in danger of wilting in the fridge, I added them to the boiling chole gravy. To my delight, the pinkish/ yellowish gravy started turning black and by the time the spinach was cooked through I had the chole of my dreams or at least the color I desired. Though they did not taste like the authentic version, they looked every bit as good. And since then, I make sure I have spinach on hand before I soak garbanzo beans.

A few weeks ago, with no spinach or any other green to turn my chole black, I resorted to the original tea leaves method. Lurking in an overlooked corner of the kitchen I had found a half empty box of tea bags. I popped one in the cooker with the soaked chana and eight whistles later the beans were all black and soft and ready to eat as is.

Encouraged, I followed Anita’s tip and roasted the onions and ginger garlic paste with the chole masala (store-bought) till everything was a luscious black color. Added some fresh tomato puree which did nothing to change the color of the gravy and then added the darkened chana to it. The result was exactly what I wanted and it looked and felt like what Anita would have made, I think. We had it again with the Tibetan bread and it was good to the last bite.

Here’s my Indian pairing for his Tibetan bread.

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 can garbanzo beans or 1/2 cup of dry beans soaked in plenty of water overnight
1 tea bag (black tea)
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 small tomato, chopped or pureed
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp chole masala/ garam masala
1/2 tsp dhana jeera powder (cumin-coriander powder)
1/2 red chili powder
1 bunch of chopped spinach (optional)

Method:
Pressure cook the garbanzo beans with the tea bag for 6-8 whistles or whatever it takes for your cooker to get them cooked through.

Heat a tablespoon of oil. Add the onions and sauté till almost brown and fragrant.

Mix in the ginger garlic paste and the dry spices (chana masala, dhana jeera and red chili powder).

Cook on medium low heat till the raw smell of ginger garlic and the dry spices turns fragrant. Continue cooking till everything starts looking dark and mysterious.

Add the chopped/ pureed tomato and cook for another five minutes. Do not under any duress add canned tomato puree. It is way too tomatoey and will change the color of your gravy from a dark black to a muddy pink.

Mash a couple of tablespoons of chickpeas in the cooking mix and stir. Add the cooked chana and the liquid it was cooking in to the onion-tomato mix and boil on medium till the gravy turns thick, about 20 minutes more.

If using spinach, add at this point. They will turn the gravy even darker. Serve with roti, naan, bread or rice.

Manisha made Rest of the World Chhole.

The chole palak go to Simona of Briciole who is hosting Susan's MLLA #26. 

Before I leave, here's a shout out to Sra, who is there for me via email when I need to bitch about another blogger trend I am not happy with. Check out her blog for some "humor" and some amazing fiction, if you are feeling down and low.

Another shout out to Jacqueline who has started The Food Blog Diary to chronicle the numerous events and giveaways happening in the blogosphere. She graciously put both my events on the blog within hours of receiving my email.

Sprouted whole Moong Usal

And how to sprout moong beans?

One hot, humid day, I forgot to grind my soaked moong dal rice mix and it sat on the counter the whole day. The next day I found my whole moong was sprouting tiny buds. So, I grinded the mix for my dosa and then proceeded to soak some more sprouted moong dal for my usal (not to be confused with usual).

The process of sprouting beans/ legumes is easy but does take time so planning a day or two ahead is necessary. Here is the easy 1-2-3 step to sprouting beans (okay, so there are more than three steps to doing this. But it is still easy).

1. Soak in plenty of water for 8 – 10 hours or overnight.
I used 3 cups of water to soak 1/2 cups of moong beans

2. Drain all the water. The beans will have doubled in volume and become plump and soft.

3. Take a damp cotton towel/ dish cloth and dump the moong beans in the center. Loosely wrap the ends around, put it in a covered pot and keep it in a dark, warm place (ex. under the stove top, in the oven or covered by a bigger pot).
4. Forget about it for 24 – 30 hours.

5. Take out the bean pot, open the dish cloth and behold glorious sprouted moong or any other beans of your choice.

You may be tempted to ask, “Why go through the trouble of sprouting the beans?” and here’s my answer. The benefits of sprouting beans are many. The sprouting process not only doubles the volume of the beans it also increases the vitamin, mineral and protein content of beans and decreases the calories and carbohydrate content. Plus they taste good even raw. So go ahead and sprout some beans today and cook them the usal way.

The usal is just a simple sauté of onions, garlic and tomatoes with some garam masala thrown in for good measure. For the purist in search of the authentic, adding a little grated coconut will achieve the desired result. I usually omit it in pursuit of retaining the earthy flavor of the moong beans.
Supriya of Red Chilies recently posted this version of cooking moong beans which is also super easy and tastes delicious.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup moong beans, sprouted
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 tomato, chopped fine
2-4 garlic cloves
1 tbsp grated coconut (optional)
1 small potato, chopped into cubes (optional)
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1 green chili, chopped fine
1 tsp garam masala
Cilantro for garnish

Method:
Grind the onion, coconut (if using), tomato and garlic cloves.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in the small, 3 liter pressure cooker. Alternatively, use a pan with a tight fitting lid. Add the mustard seeds and lower the heat when they start popping.
Add the cumin seeds, green chilli, turmeric powder and garam masala. Let it cook for 30 sec before adding the onion-tomato paste.
Cook till the raw smell of onions turns fragrant and the watery paste turns thick. This should take about 10 min on medium flame.
Add the sprouted moong beans, adjust the water and put the cooker lid on. Turn off the heat after one whistle.

If using a pan, add the tight fitting lid and cook for about 20 minutes or till the beans are cooked through but not mushy.

Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with chopped cilantro. The usal can be eaten as a side with dal and rotis or as a main dish with rotis.

Notes: If cooking in a pressure cooker, make sure to turn the heat off after one whistle. If not the beans will still taste good but will not hold their shape and will be mushy.

If using, add the cubed potato before adding the onion-tomato paste. Coat it with the spices and cook for a few minutes.

The sprouted moong bean usal goes to Susan's MLLA-17, currently hosted by Sra of When My Soup came Alive.

Moong dosa/ adai inspired by Holy Cow

I have to admit that till I started reading Vaishali’s blog, Holy Cow, my conception of vegan was vague. Not so any more. Eating a vegetarian Indian diet gets you as close to being a vegan as possible with the exception of daiy, fat and meat. Nevertheless, I try to check up Vaishali’s recipes as fast as she posts them. Trying them out at the same speed is another matter. In the past I have made her baghare baingan and loved them. This is saying a lot from someone not fond of baingan (eggplant).

Her moong dal dosa were another hit in my home. Soaking time two hours, no fermentation and a little grinding later the batter is ready. All you have to do is roll a ladleful on the skillet and your breakfast, lunch or snack is ready. These are not only easy to make and full of nutrition and protein but addictive as well. Ever since I read the recipe three weeks ago, I have been tweaking it and trying it out every few days. What I have not done is stop eating them.

So here’s my version of Vaishali’s moong dosa:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup moong dal (I used whole but split can be substituted)

1/2 cup ponni rice (Vaishali recommends any medium grain rice)
1/4 cup chana dal (optional)
2-4 green chilies
2-4 cloves of garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
1/2 bunch of coriander

Method:
Wash and soak both the dals and the rice together. Soak in about a cup and a half of water for two to three hours.

In a blender, grind the soaked ingredients with the chilies, garlic, ginger, coriander and cumin to a smooth consistency. Add salt to taste and keep aside in the refrigerator till ready to use. If the batter is too thick, add a little water to the batter.

When ready to use, heat a non-stick or a cast iron skillet on medium heat. With a smooth concentric motion of the hand, spread a ladleful of batter in a thin circle on the skillet. For a demo on how to spread dosa batter, check out this link.
Add a few drops of oil on the dosa. Unlike regular dosa, this one does need only a few drops. If you add too much, the dosa will get oily. A few drops of oil is another plus of this dosa.

When the dosa starts lifting from the edges, in a minute or two, flip it with a spatula and cook the other side. Fold it in half and serve with chutney of your choice.

Sra of When My Soup Came Alive is hosting this month's MLLA -- 17, originally started by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook. The moong dal dosa is getting shipped to the two lovely ladies on account of it being loaded with legumes.

My mother-in-law’s secret…

When I got married, my mother-in-law passed on a family secret she had also passed on to her other two, older, daughters-in-laws. Well, it is more of a cooking tip than a secret but it is such a family staple that everyone know about but no one talks about (well, till now!) that I think of it as her ‘secret’.

Well, as all things brilliant go this one is actually quite simple. Indian households, including my MIL’s, use large quantities of ginger-garlic paste in preparation of curries and other varied recipes. With three growing sons and a husband fond of good food, she learned early on that it made her life a little easier if she ground ginger-garlic-green chillis and cilantro into a paste and stored it in the fridge to be used when needed.

As her three sons grew older and eventually got married, the tip was passed down to every new bride. To me, who had not cooked a lot before getting married, the simplicity of the tip was just brilliant.

A jar of this paste in the fridge lasts about 10-14 days, if you don’t finish it all off first. It is really handy when you are cooking for a lot of guests or if you make curries that call for ginger garlic paste. I also use it for marinating meats and fish.

Ingredients:

1 cup coriander

14-15 cloves of garlic

4 inch of ginger

5-6 green chillis (vary according to preference)

1 tsp of salt

Grind the ingredients together to form a smooth paste. The salt helps preserve the paste for a couple of days.

The addition of green chillis and cilantro to the paste gives the curries and marinades a flavor that is hard to describe but tastes very good when the dish is cooked.