Chana Masala

Spicy chickpea curry

On one snowy January afternoon, my aunt and I decided to make chhole puri 🙂 When two foodies are stuck together on a snowy day, what else would you expect?! Isn’t a spicy curry with fried bread exactly something you would crave when a blizzard hits? Let me tell you this totally hit the spot that day 😉

I had an elaborate plan to make bhaturas, but owing to the cold weather our dough did not ferment enough. so we just fried puris with some chapatti dough. I will update you all with the bhatura recipe, once I get it right. For now enjoy the chhole/ chana masala with puris or chapatti or ghadichi poli or just plain rice 🙂

You will need:

1 can of chickpeas (I use organic), you can soak chickpeas overnight followed by pressure cooking them and use that

1 onion cut in thin slices

2 tomatoes cut finely or 2-3 table spoons of canned crushed tomatoes (when snowed in)

2 teaspoons ginger garlic paste

1-2 green chillies – slit

2 tbsp. oil

1 tsp coriander powder

1/2 tsp cumin powder

red chilli powder – as per tatse

Whole spices: 4-5 peppercorns, 2 cloves, 2 small pieces of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of shah jeera, 1 cardamom

salt

Procedure:

1. heat the oil in a pan and add the whole spices to the hot oil
2. Once the spices crackle, add the onions and cook till they are golden brown
3. Add ginger garlic paste. In the picture you can see I also added some cilantro-green chilli paste – to make it extra spicy, you can also add a couple green chillies slit instead of the paste.
4. Cook this down until the raw garlic smell is gone, then add the tomatoes, and cook this until it becomes a homogenous thick sauce and leaves oil on the sides
5. Add all the dry seasonings (garam masala, coriander-cumin powders, a pinch of turmeric, red chilli powder and salt) – mix well and cook for a couple of minutes.
6. Strain the canned chickpeas and add them to this mixture. Add water to adjust consistency. Cover with a lid and cook for 5-10 minutes.
7. If you think its too spicy and/ or non-cohesive at this point add a table spoon of coconut milk. I often use coconut milk to smooth out any curry that needs a little creaminess without the dairy notes. coconut milk is perfect for this application, it will will the sauce cohesive and just the right amount of light and creamy without even coming through.

Serve hot with a lemon wedge, some fresh sliced white onion topped with chat masala and your choice of bread or rice 🙂