Chickpeas for all reasons and seasons

We receive a food parcel from a friend around this time of the year. It consists of puris, kala chana and halwa, cooked with oodles of love and care. I like them all, especially the chana, which has become a favourite dish of mine in recent times. Ever since I was served a small bowl of kala chana chaat on a flight, I have been quite an aficionado of this dish. All it consisted of was a mix of boiled black chickpeas, chopped tomatoes and boiled potatoes, drizzled with mustard oil. We have been serving a version of it to our friends as ‘chakhna’, as it has been a roaring success.

This is the season for chickpeas and other kinds of peas. Chickpeas are served as prasad in the North, and to the hungry hordes that land up at their friends’ and relatives’ homes in a splendid practice called Bijoya in the East. In the days between Dasehra and Diwali, these feasts carry on — and a dish called ghugni is almost always a part of the festivity. Dried yellow or white peas are soaked overnight, and then pressure-cooked with ginger, a pinch of turmeric and salt. It is then cooked in oil with fried coconut pieces, boiled potatoes and green chillies. Some tamarind juice goes into the dish, or lime juice is squeezed into, and the ghugni is served with chopped onions and sev on top.

These dried peas and gram have different avatars. Take South India’s sundal, prepared with chickpeas, coconut and a few spices. Overnight soaked chickpeas are cooked in a pressure cooker, and taken out once the vessel lets off steam. In hot oil, mustard seeds are tempered with a pinch of asafoetida, whole red chillies, curry leaves and some urad dal. The chickpeas go into this, with some salt. The dish is often topped with grated coconut. A friend likes to add a squirt of lemon juice to it when the dish is done.

My favourite dish is mattra, the kind that is scooped out from those shiny golden handis atop carts. This is a delicious dish of boiled peas, topped with roasted jeera powder, chaat masala, some ginger slivers, tamarind water and lime juice — and usually served with a buttered kulcha on a sal leaf pattal.

The western ragra pattice has its die-hard fans, too. For this, you need to make a potato patty. Boil and grate a potato, add a bit of garlic-green paste to it, and some salt. Chef Ranveer Brar suggests that you add a few slices of white bread, with the edges chopped off, to the mash — to give it a thicker texture. Make patties and fry them. In a kadahi, put the boiled yellow peas and some roasted cumin powder. Take it off the stove, and then mash it a bit — that’s how it gets its name, ragra. Put some of the mattra on a plate, and add a dollop of green chutney and the sweet-and-sour red saunth on top. Place the potato patty over it, sprinkle some chutney over it, too. And then, add some red chilli flakes, chopped tomatoes and chopped onions. Add some sev on top, and serve. In another version, the mattra is boiled with potatoes. The potatoes are taken out, mashed and then kept aside. In a kadahi, put the mattra, add roasted coriander powder, roasted cumin powder and chilli powder to it. Add the potatoes, mix well, and add some water. Once it has a wet but thick consistency, turn off the heat. Add some chutneys on top, a pinch of chaat masala, black salt, chopped tomatoes and onions — and serve.

Let’s not forget the hummus, a finger-licking dip prepared with boiled chickpeas, lemon juice, olive oil, crushed garlic and ground cumin — all blended together. Do not discard the water when you boil the chickpeas, for you can add some of it to the ingredients in the blender to get the right consistency. And serve the hummus with anything from pita bread and cream crackers to garlic toast and raw vegetables. You can add tahini (sesame seed paste in oil) to your hummus.

My friend’s packet came to us during the Navratris and Pujas. The festival is over, as is, alas, the kala chana. I could, perhaps, persuade her to send her special chana and puri (to say nothing of the halwa) during the April Navratri, too.

Sundal

Ingredients

Kabuli chana (boiled) 1 cup

Coconut (freshly grated) ¼ cup

Asafoetida 1 pinch

Green chillies (or 2 whole red) 3, slit

Mustard seeds ½ tsp

Cumin seeds ¼ tsp

Urad dal ½ tsp

Curry leaves 1 sprig

Salt To taste

Juice of lemon Half

Oil As needed

Method

Heat the oil. Add hing, chillies, mustard seeds, cumin seeds and urad dal.

When the dal turns light brown, add the curry leaves, and then the boiled chickpeas. Stir well, and season.

When done, add the grated coconut. Before serving, add lemon juice.

— The writer is a food critic