Wednesday, 18 March 2015



Chole

This is a typical Punjabi dish eaten with Bhatura, a kind of  fried bread made with refined flour, goes best with the Chole.

Now Chole takes me straight back to my college. I did my Home Science with Literature, Psychology and Nutrition. In the Home Science practicals one of our classes was to run the canteen on one of the weekdays. Our group ran it on Thursdays. There my Chole Bhature sold like crazy, with Gajar ka Halva. We had a Punjabi teacher as a guide for the canteen, she taught us the right way of making the Bhaturas. Actually, our nutrition teacher in the kitchen was a very pretty looking lady called Rosa. First thing she told us on the first day was, "Girls for cooking you need to know how to switch the gas on!! So come on with your lighters". So coming back to the canteen, we truly enjoyed the experience.

We classmates, were a group of fourteen. We literally painted the town red, be it the famous M G Road or Commercial Street (in Bangalore). And all the theatres which ran morning shows in those days. We would take the same auto as the lecturer got off from and rush to the cinemas. Now we are literally spread all over the globe. Luckily this time some of us managed to meet after three decades . We ate, chatted and brought back all memories:) We all realised that we could still give the current college girls a run for their money mann!! What with all of our energy and enthusiasm and the naughtiness!! has not become less by even half a percent.

So here comes my recipe of the famous Chole.

Chole (This is my Mum's recipe and all of us enjoy it made this way)

Ingredients

200 gms of Kabuli Chana soaked previous night, pressure cooked with salt and little soda 
3 onions finely chopped
2 tablespoons of tamarind pulp
1 tspoon cumin pdr
1 tspoon coriander pdr
1 tspoon pepper pdr
1 tspoon garlic paste
1 tspoon ginger paste
1 tspoon chilli pdr
Salt to taste
Finely chopped coriander for garnishing

Take oil in a kadhai, put the ginger garlic paste, saute a bit, add onions, cook it till brown, add all powders, the salt (add salt with care since we added it while cooking the Chana), tamarind paste, cook well, then add the boiled Chana, stir, mix well and see if it is too thick, then add little water to make it a required consistency. garnish with coriander, serve with Pooris or Bhaturas. Enjoy accompanied with freshly cut onion, tomato and sauteed green chilli.












Sunday, 8 March 2015

MUTABAL
Mutabal, a middle eastern delicacy eaten with pita as a dip, of course we ate it with hot hot rotis and enjoyed it.
So friends another variety for you people. It was my daughter's birthday and she rarely asks for anything special to be cooked. This time I actually coaxed her into letting me know what to cook. She said she wanted the Mutabal which she ate in Turkey where she was for her last birthday! I was a bit thoughtful but then took the help of some sites and made the dish for her. It seemed like a fusion meal with Mutabal and chickpeas made in the Indian style. Here is the recipe. Hope you people enjoy the dish as much as my family did. I came to know later that she was missing Turkey!


Ingredients

1 huge seedless aubergine, I roasted it on the gas after smearing a little oil over it.
Removed the skin and mashed it roughly with a spoon.
2 tablespoons of tahini paste
3-4 garlic cloves crushed
2-3 tspoons of olive oil to mix in
More olive oil to pour over the dish as per taste
Coriander or parsley chopped finely for garnishing
2 cups of yogurt
Salt to taste

Method

Take the mashed aubergine and mix all the above ingredients except the extra olive oil and the ingredients used for garnishing. Mix well serve with olive oil poured over it and garnished with either parsley or coriander.