Choley Bhature

When you hear the name of any street food, before anything comes to your mind, your olfactory reflexes come into play and your mouth gushes in water (even writing this I couldn’t resist😋) and the very first thought that crosses by, is to just devour it any way possible.

There is a plethora of Indian street food to feast on but what I am sharing with you is “CHOLEY BHATURE”. It particularly hails from Punjab (North India) but loved all over India. The hot, soft, fluffy though oil soaked bhatura’s with spicy and tangy chickpeas, gives you many reasons to gobble it down unthinking of how much oil /calories you guzzle. After finishing, Of course, you will give it a count. 😉

 TODAY, I am sharing with you all my mother’s recipe of this dish and let me tell you it’s rare did I eat choley bhature outside as I find my mother’s one the very best.

 So get your olfactory senses ready for this savoury aroma and your taste buds waiting as it goes into your mouth.

Preparation Time:  6 to 7 hours

Cooking Time: 20 to 30 minutes

RECIPE:

BHATURA:

Ingredients required:

All-purpose flour: 2.5 cups

Baking soda: 1.5 teaspoon

Salt to taste

Oil: 2 to 3 teaspoon

Dried fenugreek leaves: 1/2 teaspoon

Semolina: 1-2 tablespoons

Yogurt: 3 to 4 tablespoons

Water: As required

Refined Oil for frying

METHOD:

1. Take a bowl and add all-purpose flour, salt, baking soda, semolina and whisk a little to mix the dry ingredients well.

2. Then add oil, dry fenugreek leaves (it’s optional, you can use coriander leaves onto the bhatura’s prior to frying) and yogurt and knead to form a dough.

3. Add water accordingly. The dough should be soft, lot more than what your chapati dough feels like.

4. If your dough sticks, you can always add little more oil and after kneading apply little oil on the crust, cover it and leave for as long as you can. Minimum for 3-4 hours and maximum for overnight.

Frying:

1. Make balls (size would be little bigger than the chapati balls).

2. Keep the balls on greased surface and cover them with a kitchen towel for sometime.

3. Then take one ball, press with your hand a bit and with a rolling pin roll out to make an oval-shaped bhatura. Shape actually doesn’t matter, just make the shape you want, round, oval or somewhere in between 🙂.

4. Lift it up with hands and put it in very hot oil for deep frying {Add a bit of your dough into the oil to check if it’s hot or not. The tiny piece of the dough would at once come up floating if it’s done}.

5. Fry with pressing the bhatura with a skimmer/strainer ladle every now and then. Fry on one side then change the side as it turns golden brown and swells up.

CHOLEY:

Ingredients required:

Chick peas: 1.5 cup

Tea bags: 2

Cinnamon stick: 1

Cloves: 2-3

Bay leaves – 1-2

Oil: 3-4 tablespoons

Cumin seeds: 1/2-1 teaspoon

Onions: 1 large, finely chopped

Tomato: 1 large, pureed

Ginger garlic paste: 1 teaspoon

Green chilly: 1-2 as per your preference

Turmeric: 1/2 teaspoon

Red chilly powder: 1/2 teaspoon (or as per your taste)

Kashmiri red chilly powder: 1/2 teaspoon

Coriander powder: 1.5 teaspoon

All spice powder/garam masala: 1/2 teaspoon

Cumin powder: 1 /2 teaspoon

Dry mango powder/khatai: 1/2 teaspoon

Chaat masala: 1/2 teaspoon

Pomegranate seeds/Anardana: 1 teaspoon, crushed (optional)

*You can use readymade choley masala as well and then you would skip the above spices

Boiled potatoes: 1 medium sized

For tempering:

Oil: 2-3 teaspoons

Ginger: few julienne cut

Green chilly: 1-2, cut in halves

METHOD:

Boiling the Chickpeas:

1. Soak the chickpeas in water overnight or you can even soak them in hot water and add a little bit baking soda if you are in a hurry.

2. Boil them while adding turmeric, bay leaf, cinnamon, tea bag and a piece of ginger.

3. Tea bag is added just for the color. You can skip it if you don’t like that brown hue.

Cooking:

1. In oil, firstly add the boiled potatoes cut into small pieces and fry them until brown keeping the flame medium. Keep them aside for garnishing.

2. To the oil (add more oil if it’s been absorbed by the potatoes) then add cumin seeds. Let it splutter a bit and then goes in onion. Add ginger garlic paste. Fry until the onions become a little brown and smell of garlic goes off. The flame should be medium-high.

2. Add tomato puree to this. Then all the spices, turmeric, coriander powder, red chilly powder, cumin powder, dry mango powder, chaat masala and salt. If required add a little water to prevent spices getting burnt. Adjust the flame from low to medium. Cook for a while until oil separates.

3. Add the chickpeas and water. The quantity of water is your own choice, how thin or thick consistency you want.

4. Let it cook for sometime (6 – 8 minutes approximately) covered. Then with the help of a masher, mash little of your chickpeas to add thickness to the gravy.

5. You can always add water later on if you find the gravy too thick as after being cooked, the gravy thickens further.

6. Add garam masala.

Tempering:

In hot oil add ginger juliennes, green chilly and as the ginger starts to change color, pour this onto the choley.

Garnishing:

Garnish with fried boiled potatoes and coriander leaves.

And your Choley bhature is ready to be served!!

Thank you so very much for your time for reading and going through my post 😊.

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