The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Surplus coaxes us towards invention as much as scarcity. I hate to throw food items away and equally hate to have them beyond their "best before" dates. So I’m using up my pack of poppy seeds, that’s dangerously close to expiry, in varied ways Ditto for my bunch of fresh mint leaves. I used some in pudina chutney last night when the mint was freshly plucked – the rest went into this kala chana recipe.

How awesome it is when untried combinations of flavors turn out well.

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We normally make cheela – a savory pancake popular as breakfast food in India – with besan (gram flour), but my taste buds prefer the more delicate flavors of moong dal cheela. Moong dal has the added edge of being less taxing to the tummy than gram flour.

On to the cheela recipe, with step-by-step pictures…

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Green moong dal, when boiled, retains its shape unlike dals like masoor (red lentil) and toor (yellow lentil). One can put boiled moong dal to good use in a moong bean salad.

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Of all the types of dals, split toor dal (also called arhar dal) is the one I cook most often. I don’t always put a tadka with it, sometimes just plain boiled dal with salt and a few drops of lime juice tastes great when the rest of the dishes on my place are spicy. On other "tadka" days, tomato toor dal is one of my most-loved ways of having toor dal.

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What takes time to cook is not necessarily complex – that statement is so true of rajma masala (kidney bean curry). To the uninitiated, rajma masala might look like the result of sophisticated culinary jugglery. In truth this is one of the simpler gravies you could make in the Indian cuisine.

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A multi-spiced dish with chickpeas, channa masala is a great favorite in north India. This is also a wise dish to have on the menu when you’re cooking an Indian meal for a big gathering – it is easy to prepare in large quantities since there isn’t much chopping or watching over involved.

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