PINDI CHANA / PINDI CHHOLE

I want to make it from a long time and finally managed to make this few days back. This was again an awesome and spicy chana recipe that is made for the Indian taste buds. This recipe has got a lot of variations. I have adopted this chhole recipe from Internet. Chhole is nothing but chickpeas .This is one of the very simplest and easiest recipe. The recipe tastes good because  of the addition of dry mango powder and chaat masala. You can add pomegranate seed powder too. As it is not available at this time so used chat masala and dry mango powder. Made an instant dry masala for this recipe. This recipe is usually dry and made with black chana, but I tried it with kabuli chana/ chhole. This recipe is gifted from Rawalpindi now present in Pakistan. Pindi chana are best served with either puri or bhature but I served this with chapattis. Let me tell you this dish will leave burst of flavours on your taste buds, will temp you to eat more and will get over very soon. The best part of this recipe is you don’t have to chop anything. Just use ready masalas and you are sorted.  So don’t waste the time and give a try to this yummy and spicy recipe of pindi chhole.   

INGREDIENTS:

Boiling Chana:

250gms Chhole/ White Chickpeas/ Garbanzo Beans

3 to 4 Cloves

2 Cinnamon sticks of one inch each

2 Black Cardamoms

2 to 3 Green Cardamoms

2 Tea Bags [idon’t have tea bag, so made a potli with tea powder in a small piece of cloth and used it]

2 Bay Leaves

7 to 8 Black Peppers

2 Dagad Phool [stone flower]

½ Mace [javitri]

1 teaspoon Red Chilli Powder

2 tablespoon Coriander Powder

1 teaspoon Turmeric

1 tablespoon Garam Masala Powder

1 teaspoon Dry Mango Powder

 2 to 3 tablespoon Salt/Black Salt

For tempering chana:

2 tablespoon Refined Oil

3 tablespoon Ginger-Garlic Paste

1 tablespoon Caraway Seed

1 teaspoon Sugar

A pinch of Asafoetida

1 teaspoon Chaat Masala

2 to 3 tablespoon Chhole Masala Powder

10-15 Mint Leaves

 1 Tomato

2-3 Green Chillies,make a slit in each of them

2 tablespoon Chopped Coriander

 Lemon Juice from 1 lemon

METHOD:

STEP  1 – Very important soak chickpeas overnight in water.

STEP 2 - Boil chickpeas with the spices mentioned above black cardamom, green cardamom, cloves, dalchini and teabag. Pressure cook until 4 whistles or until tender.

STEP 3 – Drain the water from chickpeas. Discard the tea bags and all spices.

STEP 4 –  Powder all the ingredients given in boiling chana section [from 7-16].

STEP 5 -Take a small pan or vessel. Add clarified butter to it. Keep on low heat.

Once it is hot add caraway seeds and sugar.

Saute for 30 secs. Now add the ginger-garlic paste and keep stirring. Watch out it might just spill over you.

STEP 4 – After a minute add all the powdered spices and a pich of asafoetida except chat masala.Add few mint leaves as well. Stir all nicely for a minute.

STEP 5 – Now add chopped tomatoes as well as halved chillies and saute them.

STEP 6 - Now add boiled chickpeas to it. Combine all nicely. Add salt for seasoning.

STEP 7 – Allow this to cook for another 5 to 7 minutes on low heat. Lastly add chat masala and salt stir nicely.

STEP 8 – Just taste and check if seasoning required. Add more salt or spices if required. Switch off the gas. Serve hot pindi chhole and enjoy.

Before serving squeeze some lime juice. Serve pindi chana hot with rotis, purees or parathas.

NOTE: You could use the same recipe for all kinds of beans.

Adding tea bags or amla gives a nice colour, so do add them while boiling.

Ensure heat is on low mode else the spices might burn.

You could make chana bhel by adding sev, onions, puris/ papdis with a dsah of lime juice.