Chickpea/Kabuli Chana Fugad

We Mangaloreans are good at making fugad of every available legume or vegetable...:D That is one of the reasons why I feel I am unable to prepare any other vegetable curry..lol!! Ask my husband as to how I break into a sweat when we have shudh vegetarians over for lunch. Cause my basic knowledge of preparing veggies is reduced to fugad!!

Since our arrival to Germany and having gotten ourselves acquainted with Indian families who are vegetarians has encouraged me to take a bold step and whip up some veggie delights. I will definitely post some of the delicious vegetable gravies I have prepared, but for now, back to this dear chickpea fugad of mine.

Every family will have it's own unique way of preparing it. Here is mine.

Ingredients:

• A cup of chickpeas soaked overnight.
• 1 medium onion
• 1 large tomato
• 3 to 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• a sprig curry leaves
• 1 tsp bafath powder
• a handful of freshly grated coconut.
• 4 tbsp oil
• salt to taste

Method:

1. Soak the chickpeas overnight for 12 hours.
2. Drain them. Place them in a pressure cooker with enough water so that they are soaked well(roughly an inch above the peas). Add salt to taste and pressure cook till just about tender(They shouldn't be too soft). Since I use a german pressure cooker with no whistle, it takes me about roughly 15 to 20 minutes to cook.
3. Meanwhile, slice the onion fine. Chop the tomato. Crush the garlic with skin.
4. In a deep bottomed vessel or kadhai, heat the oil. When sufficiently hot add the mustard seeds. As they splutter drop in the curry leaves and crushed garlic. Fry for a few seconds.
5. Add the sliced onion, fry for 2 minutes. Drop in the chopped tomato and fry well till both onion and tomato blend together. 
6. Toss in the grated coconut and bafath powder. Mix well.
7. Now add the cooked channa, a little of the stock(depends on how dry you want it). Mix well so that the coconut and masala is coated well around the peas. Adjust salt.
8. Cook on a slow flame till peas are well cooked and water is absorbed. Do not allow it to burn.
9. Have it with hot rotis or rice and sambhar.

Note: Since I had very few strips of fresh coconut, I added a fistful of dessicated coconut.

Michelle's Punjabi Chole.

Hello to readers of my blog. Am sorry for the guest appearances I have been giving. Its just that managing two blogs seems quite hard and am giving more attention to the other fellow..Sorry to The Chef. Please do not get angry. I promise to give attention to you too.

  Well, over the New Years, we as a family decided to have more of vegetarian meals. Okay, I made the decision and husband and kids welcomed it with glee. You heard me right. With glee. What? Aren't we Mangy's who love dukra maas and sannas with toddy?? Oh yes we are, but somehow I have children who are more of the Bangy kind, mosaru ana(curd rice) lovers!! They absolutely love veggies. But being the mangy I am, I never mastered the art of cooking exotic vegetarian dishes.

  So when the kilos in me started piling up, thanks to expat life and non availability of a lot of Indian food, we resorted to eating meat everyday. Being the lazy woman I am who hates to exercise, I thought it is now or never. High time to make some changes in our food would be the first step. Which meant, I had to put in more effort to searching recipes and bring about a change in our cuisine. It has been a month, and am happy to report(that I have lost a kilo without exercising..:D) that the change has been good and the family has been relishing the meals. And we do have our share of non vegetarian meals, thrice a week.

 Michelle, a fellow Mangalorean with an awesome food blog, blogged this recipe last week. Chick peas is an all time favorite with the family. I generally prepare it with bafath powder, seasoned with oil, mustard, curry leaves, onions and coconut(this was my own recipe). Her recipe looked tempting enough to try, and here's how it goes...

• 500 gm chick peas, boiled
• 1 large onion, diced fine
• 250gm chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
• 2 tbsp oil
• salt to taste

For the masala powder:

• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 inch piece cinnamon
• 3 whole cloves
• 4 green cardamom
• 1 tsp whole black pepper
• 2 dried long red chillies
• 1 big dried bay leaf

Method:

1. Soak the chickpeas overnight. 
2. Boil them in a pressure cooker till soft and keep aside.
3. Put all the spices on a tawa and roast them well, stirring constantly.
4. Powder them fine in a mixer. 
5. In a kadhai, heat oil and cook the onion till color changes. Add the ginger garlic paste and continue to fry for another minute.
6. Add the tomatoes to the mixture and cook well till the onion and tomatoes become a thick paste.
7. Add the ground spice powder, bay leaf and salt to taste. Cook on a slow flame, stirring for about 10-15  minutes, until the masala is fairly dry.
8. Add the chickpeas along with the water and stir together gently. Simmer for 5 minutes. Garnish with spring onions and serve hot with roti or rice.

Michelle, looks like the bafath powder is going to have to take a backseat for a while. The Chole with the blend of spices was perfect to beat the winter blues.