Chole Bhatureછોલે ભટૂરે
Spicy chickpeas with big puffed bhature. The most famous plate in Delhi and Punjab, and strictly a Sunday lunch affair.
Ingredients
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- Chole: 2 cups chickpeas, soaked overnight
- 2 onions, 3 tomatoes, ginger-garlic
- 2 tbsp chhole masala, 1 tsp dried mango powder, 1 tea bag
- Bhature: 3 cups plain flour, ½ cup yoghurt, 1 tsp sugar, a pinch of soda
- Oil for frying, salt, coriander
Method
- Pressure cook the chickpeas with salt and a tea bag for 6 whistles, then remove the bag. The tea gives the dark colour.
- Fry the onions until golden, add ginger-garlic and tomato purée and cook until the oil separates.
- Add the chhole masala and the chickpeas with their water, and simmer 20 minutes, mashing a few to thicken.
- For the bhature, mix flour, yoghurt, sugar, soda and salt into a soft dough and rest it, covered, for 2 hours.
- Roll thick discs and fry in hot oil, pressing gently so they balloon.
- Finish the chole with dried mango powder and coriander, and serve with bhature, onion and pickle.
Tips
- The bhatura dough genuinely needs two hours of resting.
- They only balloon if the oil is properly hot.
Storing and reheating
The chole keep three or four days in the fridge and genuinely taste better on day two, and they freeze for a month. The gravy thickens as it cools, so add a splash of boiling water when reheating. Bhature do not keep at all; they turn leathery once cold. The dough itself will hold a day in the fridge.
What you can swap
- No chhole masala? Use 1 tsp coriander-cumin powder, ½ tsp garam masala, ½ tsp amchur and a pinch of ground ginger together. It gets you very close.
- No tea bag? Tie two teaspoons of loose tea in a cloth, or drop in a piece of dried amla, which darkens the gravy just as well.
- To avoid using all plain flour, go half maida and half semolina. The bhature are a bit crisper and puff less, but feel lighter.
- No yoghurt? Curdle half a cup of warm milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice and use that. Half a teaspoon of baking powder stands in for the soda.
What to serve with it
A heavy Sunday meal, eaten at breakfast in Punjab and more often at lunch in Gujarat. It goes with raw onion rings, lemon, green chilli and carrot-radish pickle on the side, and a glass of salted buttermilk or lassi to get through it.
Mistakes to avoid
- Do not add amchur, tomato or lemon before the chickpeas are soft. Acid firms up their skins and after that they will not soften however long you cook them.
- Chickpeas more than a year old never soften, no matter how long you soak them. Buy fresh stock and add a pinch of soda to the soaking water.
- Do not roll the bhature thinner at the edges than in the middle. Uneven discs burst on one side instead of ballooning.
- Do not let rolled bhature sit around. The surface dries in two minutes and then they refuse to puff, so roll and fry one at a time.
Questions people ask
Why won't my bhature puff up?
Usually one of three things: the dough has not rested long enough, the oil is not hot enough, or the rolled disc has dried out. Drop a scrap of dough in the oil; it should rise straight to the top. Press the bhatura down gently with a slotted spoon as it fries.
My chickpeas are still hard after pressure cooking. What now?
Put them back in the cooker with a pinch of baking soda and a little water for three or four more whistles. Just make sure no tomato or amchur has gone in yet, because once acid is in the pot they will not soften at all.
How do I get the dark colour without tea?
Fry the onions past golden to a deep brown and roast the chhole masala in the oil for half a minute. A single black cardamom pod also deepens both the colour and the aroma.
