Moong Daal Kachori.

My first food blog.

May 15th, 2021 when I planned to enter kitchen with the intention of making moong daal (green gram/lentil) Kachori it was my fourth attempt at kachoris. I was quite encouraged with the previous three performances so there was no doubt in my mind this time around and no fear of failure ( होता भी तो किसने देखना था).

Actually the plan to make Kachori was made a day before when Abha went to enquire with our only neighbor on the floor, a ninety year old Dr Dinesh Singh, who lives on his own, not now but ever since he shifted in the neighborhood in 2003. He has been living alone since a long time before that too, he has been a widower now for over 40 years and it has been an empty nest for a long time. One must give all the credit to him .. he is a symbol of स्वावलंबी DIY kind of a person.. well-read, a life time teacher, it has been an interesting and in a way fulfilling, enriching living with him as a neighbor. But Corona has changed our daily interactions and we try to keep distance as much as possible, only physical not otherwise, our main reason is that he has been more exposed than us with maids coming in and out. Well, with god's grace he has managed well and remained active so much so that not only only he gets up and walks in the alley but also uses stepper that even I find hard at times. 

So, during a casual health enquiry when he mentioned " प्रदीपजी कचौरियां बड़ी अच्छी बनाते हैं" " Pradeepji makes good Kachoris (remembering from the last attempt) I heard him and decided to go for it after a gap of almost 5 months.

Moong Daal Kachori obviously need moong daal, so using mix of instructions from three different recipes  on YouTube : cooking shooking, nishamadhulika and one punjabi bebe, I set out for the show. Half a cup of moong Daal was soaked in drinking water for two hours after washing thoroughly. Then I went back to some other tasks like reading a few pages of "the battle of belonging" by Shashi Tharoor and with the phone in hand listening to Jagjit Singh's shabad and Ghazals to remember my singer friend who succumbed to the monster Covid earlier that morning. When Daal was in water for nearly one and a half hour I went back to kitchen and started the preparation. I find it convenient when all the ingredients are in front of my eyes instead of taking them from the store/ bottles when needed, you often miss out some when they are needed in the pan that is on the gas stove. So the following were collected and kept in small bowls. I also watch/listen to instructions end to end at least twice so that I don't miss keeping ingredients when required.

To prepare the filling we will first crush fennel seeds, cumin seeds and coriander seeds on a stone (sil batta), also crush ginger and green chilies and then take a pan and heat it on the stove at low flame. Add 2 tbsp oil, I used olive oil but you could take any cooking oil that you like vegetable, mustard, coconut depending on your taste. Olive oil doesn't leave any taste of its own so you don't get it's smell. When the oil heats up a little, add the crushed mixture of coriander, cumin and fennel seeds (धनिया, जीरा और सौंफ) cook it for about a minute on low flame and add the crushed green chili and ginger paste run for another minute and add other spices pepper powder, red chili, Kasuri methi (special type of dried fenugreek leaves), black salt, garam masala (mixed spices), amchoor (raw mango) powder, a tea spoon of normal salt, be careful with salt as you have already put the black/rock salt. Cook this mixture for another 3-4 minutes till you start appreciating the aroma. Now add about half cup besan (chickpea flour) and keep cooking the mixture for another 4 to 5 minutes till you see besan changing its colour and the filling mixture looks homogeneous. Now add the soaked moong daal with the water ( ensure water level is just little over the daal and not more). If you want you may run in for 15 sec in a blender but since it is soaked well you may avoid that, depending on what texture you like). Cook the whole mixture for another 4-5 minutes and turn off the flame.

 

Let the mixture cool and till then we turn to the dough. Take 2 cups of refined flour/maida in a large bowl, add a tsp of salt mix well and add about 4 tbsp of pure ghee, don't use oil as that will make the covering soft, now mix well with hand and when you feel that the flour, salt and ghee is mixed well add very small quantities of warm water, don't add large quantities, we don't need a running dough. Keep mixing till you get a nice and soft stretchy dough. Keep it covered with a damp cloth for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes take it out knead it for a minute or two and  divide it in equal parts and make round balls of the dough, I got 12 balls from the 2 cup maida. By now our filling mixture must have cooled down. Make small size balls of this filling, from the quantity that is described, I could make 12 balls, it will be good if the dough balls are of equal size too and try doing the same for the mixture filled balls.

 Now flatten the dough ball in your palm and place the filling on it and cover it, make sure it's another round ball and is sealed properly. 

Now take oil in a kadhai (frying pan) large enough to take at least four kachoris if not six. I filled it with about 400 ml olive oil. Heat it on high flame and when oil is hot put the flattenned circular filled dough, you can either flatten it by hand or over a flat surface. Press it gently so that filling doesn't come out. It should neither be too thin ( else you will get poories) not too thick ( that will taste like matthi). After about 5 minutes reduce the flame to medium and fry for another 8-10 minutes, you will notice kachoris will start puffing and become bigger and changing its colour to little brownish.

Take out the fried Kachoris and let the oil cool for about 10 minutes. Repeat the process and serve hot kachoris with some green mint-coriander chutney and sweet and sour imli (tamarind) chutney. A hot cup of tea with this would make the tea time or even breakfast time complete and fulfilling.