Beetroot chole is not a regular chore dish. While it may be common for everyone to try , I made this purely because I did not want to waste the beetroot water and add a good colour by missing the tea water. Adding beetroot pieces instead of potatoes is also interesting. While the west is now catching up on chickpea under “vegan” category apart from hummus, Indians adopted this well.
Need –
- Chickpea – 5 cups – washed and soaked overnight
- Onion – 1 – big
- Tomatoes – 3
- Ginger – 2 inch
- Garlic – 2 cloves
- Bay leaf – 2
- Jeera – 2 tsp
- Green chilli – 1
- Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
- Turmeric – 1 tsp
- Hing – 1 tsp
- Garam masala – 1 tsp
- Chole masala – 2 tsp
- Amchur – 1 tsp
- Tamarind paste – 1 tsp
- Anardhana (dry pomegranate powder)- 1/2 tsp
- Water + beetroot water (from steamed beetroot)
- Salt
- Coriander – handful
Process –
- Soak the chickpea overnight. You can pressure cook it separately with water, salt , hing and keep or do it one pot style like I do.
- Coarsely crush the onion , garlic and 1 inch ginger else grate all 3.
- In a pan take oil , add bay leaf , jeera and split the green chilli. Add the onions , ginger garlic. When the raw smell goes, add the chopped tomatoes. When it becomes mushy and integrated with the onions add turmeric, red chilli powder , hing, garam masala , anardhana, 1 tsp chole powder , tamarind paste , salt. You can skip anardhana if using beetroot or its water
- When oil starts leaving the sides add the chole and the water reserved from steaming the beetroot. Add beetroot pieces now if you like. (add water carefully if you are adding already cooked chickpea) . Here the chole is not yet cooked.
- Pressure cook for 5 whistles till chickpea can be mashed by hand.
- Open and add the remaining chole powder , amchur ,coriander and julienned ginger .
TamarindtoAmchur 