What is Chana Masala?
Chana masala is a dish possibly originating in northern part of India but which is now popular throughout india and abroad. Chana Masala is also called as Chole masala many times. Chana Masala is made from cooked Garbanzo beans or whole chickpeas along with a sauce to bring it together. Sometimes it can be more like a stew. In fact our moms make them like a stew and we plan to post a recipe for that as well.
What is different about this Chana Masala?
We can safely say that we have gone full circle on this recipe. From enjoying it as kids when this would be served with bhature to making it ourselves as graduate students left to fend for ourselves. We have also seen chana masala served at most restaurants go the route of an afterthought on the menu with tomato paste laden sauces which taste almost same as any other entrees on their menu. Same happened when we cooked for large groups as students. People would invariably use a lot of tomato paste, many times canned since it afforded the consistency and volume to the dish with least amount if effort. The very high acidity of pastes then requires additions of a lot of spices and heat from chili powder to balance the tart flavors and hence always results in a oily sour and far too spicy dish for our liking. We infact lost our love for this dish tired of eating these chana masalas for years. So it was indeed time to revive our love for this dish.
We wanted to make it without using any tomatos or tomato paste. When i remember smelling chana masala i remember the fragrance of the sweet spices of cinnamon and nutmeg. We wanted to incorporate those aromatics. Just around this time we stumbled on pictures of chana masala (Credit: Stuart Freedman) from a shop in delhi named sitaram diwanchand famous for this dish. Soon we were watching video of one of our favorite foodies Mark Wiens eating at this place in his characteristic enthusiasm. He clued us on to a few characteristics of this dish served there and we found out a bit more from few other videos. We found that the chana were cooked so that they melt in the mouth and that the owners took pride in the fact that even a child can eat and enjoy their deliberately spice balanced chana masala. They also serve their sweet and sour and spice balanced chana masala with mint chutney. With these descriptions and visuals we set off to trying to make our own version without having tasted the actual ones in Delhi. We still do not know if ours is any similar to one in Delhi but we have now made it a few times and we can vouch that it maybe different but is most certainely delicious.
This way of Chana Masala spoke to us and we decided to use this as our theme to construct our dish. We would spice it using the sweet aromatic spices and not use tomato pastes, heat of any chili powders or even ginger and garlic paste. Mint gives a very cooling sensation to the mouth and hence we would also serve ours so that its eaten with some mint chutney mixed in.
About our Chana Masala Flavors
Since we were not going to use any acidity from the tomatos, we decided to gain the much more balanced sour flavors from Dried mango or Amchur and anardana which are dried pomegranete seeds. This i believe impart some subtle sourness and much more complexity. They will also allow us to use creamy and sour yogurt in our dish to get the consistency for our sauce. This sourness also allows to boil our chana with a black tea bag which not only imparts a darker color but also a nice bitter flavor to complement the sourness.If you cannot find amchur (whole) you could use amchur powder. If you cannot find amchur powder you could skip it. It is many times included in a ready made pre mix chana masala or chole masala powder. We would recommend to try and use the pomegranete sourness because it is so unique an dflavorful and will keep this dish special and different for you if you have only tasted chana masala in restaurants in US so far. They look something like this.
If you can’t find them whole we also tested making this recipe with Pomegranate molasses which are now available alongside the vinegar’s in many supermarkets. These are slightly sweeter but also carry a certain charm in their fermented sourness. That works great too, you just need to be careful to add only a little since this is quit potent. (In our recipe instead of 1 TbsP whole pomegranate seeds which we grind to a powder you can use 1tsp of pomegranate molasses and add more if required later to adjust the seasoning)
The other flavors for this dish come from the ghee or clarified butter and the onions that we brown to caramelized sweetness in this ghee. We chop the onions very fine and cook them in hot foaming ghee stirring fast so as not to burn them.
However we do let them brown quite a bit till they are reduced and carry a deeply caramelized flavor. As you cook the rest of the sauce you will find that these reconstitute themselves by soaking the cooking liquids, and the de-glazing of this pan incorporates lovely sweet smoky flavors in the dish.
About cooking the Chana
For this recipe we require uniformly cooked chana which are cooked to be integral yet smash-able in your finger tips easily. We cook ours in pressure cooker but you can cook them in a covered stock pot just as easily albeit with longer cooking time. We soak our chana overnight to give them a chance to cook much more evenly and stay whole even as they are cooked through. We sometimes also use brown chana or brown garbanzo beans to create a variation and this is what you will see in the recipe picture. When using dried beans make sure to use good quality and not very aged beans as these are really tough to cook and wont soak up much water to reconstitute. These days the canned products are also available in tetra packs instead of cans and you can also find good quality canned organic garbanzo’s very easily. They work well in the recipe as easily as boiling the dried garbanzo beans yourself. In either case we recommend adding some baking soda to the boiling water to help cook the garbanzo beans tenderly and in much reduced time. Hence we recommend to cook the canned ones in boiling water for 20 minutes or more as well. Do not salt the boiling water and make sure there is enough water at all times to submerge the chana when cooking.
We add A piece of dried mango root, bay eaf and a black tea bag when cooking the chana. These will impart some flavor already to the chana.
Serving our Chana Masala
We serve our Chana Masala with mint chutney spooned over top and some raw onion slivers added on top.
We serve ours with Naan and diners are expected to wipe the plate off with torn pieces of the naan getting some of the chana masla, the chutney and the onions in their bites.
Chana Masala
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 mins
- Yield: Serves 2
Description
Our Chana Masala recipe does not use any tomato, tomato paste, ginger, garlic, red chili powder or green chilies. Instead we focus on flavorful sweet spices of cinnamon and nutmeg alongwith balanced sour flavors from dried mango and pomegranate seeds.
Ingredients
- 0.5 cup dried garbanzo beans or 1 cup cooked garbanzo beans
- 1 tea spoon baking soda
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 inch piece of dried mango (optional)
- 1 black tea bag
- For Spice mix: (Substitute with 2 Tbsp Pre mix chole masala except for the pomegranate seeds)
- 2 tea spoon black peppercorns
- 3 tea spoon dried pomegranate seeds (substitute with 1 tsp pomegranate molasses)
- 0.5 inch piece of cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 small mace flower
- 2 tsp coriander seeds
- 0.5 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp dried ginger powder
- 1 Tbsp Ghee
- 1 cup chopped onions
- 3/4 cup yogurt
- 2 tsp chopped cilantro
- Salt or rock salt to taste
- For the mint chutney:
- 1 cup fresh mint leaves
- 3 tsp frsh lime juice
- 0.5 cup cilantro leaves
- 1 chopped green chili optional
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp yogurt
- 1 tsp oil if needed
Instructions
- If using dried garbanzo beans, soak them overnight with enough water to cover them since they will absorb the water and double in size
- Next day add the soaked garbanzo beans to a stock pot and add 1 litre of water or enough water to cover the beans throughout the cooking process
- Add the 1 tsp baking soda and bring to a boil.
- Add the bay-leaf, the tea bag and the dried mango and let simmer for 60 to 90 minutes till the garbanzo beans are cooked and tender throughout. This cooking time is less if using canned par cooked chickpeas.
- Drain and discard the tea bag and spices
- In a pan melt the ghee or butter and when hot add the finely chopped onions and stirring frequently evenly brown it on medium to medium high heat
- Meanwhile roast individually if required/preferred and grind all the spices for the spicemix in a spice or coffee grinder to a fine powder. Then sift it through a sieve. You can re grind the collected pieces again. Make sure to sift since the pomegranate seeds and cinnamon tends to turn up as unsavory hard bites otherwise.
- Mix this with the yogurt thoroughly. Use the pomegranate molasses in this step if you are using them instead of pomegranate seeds in the spice mix.
- Add a spoon of water to the brown onions in the hot pan to deglaze and reduce heat to medium.
- Now add the yogurt paste to the browned onion on medium heat and mix thoroughly stirring constantly as you cook and sort of fry the yogurt paste to cook out the spices.
- The ghee will start to separate out. At this point add the cooked garbanzo beans and mix thoroughly on lower heat and then add water to cover and cook covered on a simmer
- Once the sauce and the garbanzo beans are cooked and integrated in about 20 minutes on covered simmer, you can increase the heat and reduce the sauce down to a slightly thick flowing consistency.
- Mix in the chopped cilantro and season with salt to taste.
- For the minth chutney:
- Finely chop all leaves and grind in a mortar and pestle with little water and chilies or use a blender to blend with a tea spoon of water alongwith a little oil added at a time till you obtain a chutney of spoon-able consistency. Stir in the salt, lemon juice and yogurt.
- To serve:
- Serve the chana masala in a flat dish, spoon the minth chutney over half the portion and add some slivered raw onions on top. You can also add a spoon of ghee or butter to give richer taste. Serve with Naan.
- Prep Time: 60 mins
- Cook Time: 90 mins
- Category: Entree
- Cuisine: Indian
