Tel Chhara Ghugni ( Oil Free Wtite Peas' "Matar" Snack)

Hi there, I am back once more with another favourite of mine. Actually this was a signature dish of my Mom, and people loved it. and believe me, its cooked without a single drop of oil and tastes just great and even a child can cook it; its so simple to make.

Today we are all health conscious and try to avoid oily food or use less oil in our cooking; surprisingly 30 years back, my Mom used to make quite a few dishes almost without oil, which I am going to eventually share with you. What we are going to cook today is GHUGNI, another Bengali signature dish which you can find in all parts of Bengal in various forms, but the basic ingredient remains same, that is Sada Matar or Safed Matar or Safed Bawatana or Dried White Peas. As a general cooking process, they are soaked overnight and then boiled. Thereafter, they are cooked in a variety of spice combinations and with aromatics like onion, ginger and garlic etc. etc. And the variations are also great and very tempting too. Just thinking about some of them is making me drooooooool :P

We have mangsher ghugni ( mutton ghugni); keemar ghugni (minced meat ghugni); alu diye ghugni (ghugni with small pieces of potaoes), to mention a few. All of them are terribly tasty, but are cooked with lots of oil and spices. Of course I am going to share the recipes of all those too eventually. But today its time for some HEALTHY OIL FREE COOKING.

Oh, before I forget, that this Ghuni is essentially a snack, but we Bengalis eat them as a snack and times as a side dish too, particularly with phulkas (roti) and even with bread. It may surprise many of you and will make a lot of us nostalgic if I mention the Pauruti Ghugni ( Bread & Ghugni) tha's available even today in a lot of Kolkata & Bengal's Chai ki tapri or road side tea stalls :)

Now for the recipe of THE GHUGNI.......
Serves 4-6

What you need is

1. Safed Matar - 500 g
2. A few Slivers of Coconut (optional)
3. 2 inch pc of ginger ( make a paste or grate it finely; either will do)

4. A few whole dry red chili or chili flakes if you dont want the trouble
5. Whole jeera (cumin)
6. Green Cardamom (chhoti elachi)- 1 pc
7. Cloves ( Laung)- 3-4
8. Cinnamon (Dalchini) - 1 small pc.
 9. Salt to taste

And for Garnishing you need

 10. Chopped onion
11. Chopped Green Chilies - to tas

12. Chopped Coriander (Cilantro to a lot of you)
13. Lime/ Lemon Jiuce
14. Black Salt Powder

Method is very simple :

•  Soak the Matar overnight or for atleast 8 hours. 

• Then wash them and put them in a pressure cooker, cover with water,
•  add salt (keep the level of salt low as we are going to season the Ghugni with Black Salt too before serving ).
• Add the Coconut slivers
• Add the juice of the ginger (that you have made a paste or kept grated) by squeezing or pressing it between your hands, or you can use a strainer and press the juice out.
• Put the lid and pressure cook it. If you are using a large pressure cooker, then wait till the 1st whistle at medium high heat and if you are using a small pressure cooker, then two whistles on medium low heat. Anyways, you will perfect it once you try it a few times.
• The peas should be well cooked but should not be too mushy. ( you should be able to identify them as peas.... :D)
• While the peas are getting cooked, don't sit idle dear. What you do during that time is that..... dry roast the dry chilies ( put them in a fry pan on a slow heat and roast them till they become crisp and start releasing their pungent smell and you start coughing :(
• then take the chilies out, let them cool and dry roast the jeera and elachi-laung-dalchini togather. Cool them and then gring them roughly.
• Do the same with the roasted chili also - i mean grind them roughly. ( if you are having chili flakes, then forget the chili roasting phase - you are lucky :)
• One this is done, your main worry is over. The rest is simple assembly only.

Assembly :

•    Take out the boiled Matar in a pan
•    Add the Roasted Chili Powder and the Jeera-elachi-laung-dalchini powder
•    mix well

 For serving, put them in individual katories or plates, sprinkle chooped onion, dhania, green chili, black slat and lime/lemon juice.

 Ummmmmmmm.........................Enjoy..... and tell me how was it.