KABULI CHOLAR BORA O DOI POROTA

This is never the right time for me to do a blog post, I am a morning person. The otherwise non-functional brain feels happy & fresh in the mornings. To feel free most of the days, I cook not in bulk but a variety on a Saturday. During this circuit breaker period, I am just cooking extra breads each day. Yes, our one meal is "ruti-porota-luchi" every day. We prefer a vegetarian puffed or flat bread meal over a vegetarian rice. For the majority of Bengalis, rice is associated with fish or meat. Tonight, we will have a vegetarian, rice meal. I am too tired to prepare "roti-prata", my Sunday after a Saturday has to be relaxing. Cristine shall fry the hyalencha / water cress er bora / fritter at night and we will have it with "mash kolai er dal and til bata diye kancha tomator torkari." On Thursday, I got in hand some green tomatoes which we rarely get here. If you follow my personal profile, you may see I had my lunch with Cristine made "porota in ghee, lau o aloor chokla boti and an omelette." I  did get Udon Bowl with Karage for Cristine and Bento Boxes for the men. 

 Though I cook a lot on a Saturday, the rest feel happy if they get outside food over the weekend. Now that Cristine is not getting a Sunday off, I get for her too. Why not? Be it the dough or shaping all the Garbanzo Bean  tikki / bora of this combo, vegetarian meal KABULI CHOLAR BORA O DOI POROTA; she helps me majorly. When she is gone, you will get the simplest of meals from me. After a porota meal, I had a bowl of watermelon which is not a sin given the climate here. That was more than an hour back and I am with "muri badam makha o cha" now. If this is not a suicidal tendency, what is?

The man too is having a "muri-chanachur-badam-peyaz-lanka" bowl today; recently again in fact. I think he is not willing to watch a movie or web series together with me this weekend. Since yesterday, he is watching political series. Now what is going on is concerning CIA & Syria I am not interested in. What more can I expect from a man who after the first proposal took me to watch a Hollywood political thriller in Light House; that too knowing me since age twelve. Yet, he changed a lot in the past two decades to accommodate me. I do not remember when I stopped expecting a bit of romanticism from him. As long as he or the monkey happily eats this vegetarian platter of KABULI CHOLAR BORA O DOI POROTA their lady cooked, I am happy. Look, how I turned a plate of falafel & pita to something I am comfortable in. What to do? I cannot ditto follow recipes. I do not plan them much in advance and never spend generously buying ingredients for a particular dish. Falafel uses parsley and I had coriander only. I learnt about this two main ingredients flat bread from a you-tube video. It used it for pizza base baking it in an oven. Long back, I prepared pizza base with it too, the video is there in the saved files but I am tired enough to find it from a collection I saved two years back. Had I been technically sound, I would have taken the Blog to a better position. It really is a handicapped kind of a feeling.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOI POROTA / YOGURT FLAT BREAD

SELF RAISING FLOUR : 2 COFFEE MUG [YOU CAN USE PLAIN REFINED FLOUR OF SAME AMOUNT WITH 2 TSP BAKING POWDER & 1/3 TSP BAKING SODA]

PLAIN YOGURT : 150 GM OR AS REQUIRED FOR A SMOOTH DOUGH

SALT : 1/2 TSP

OIL : 2-3 TBSP + 1TSP FOR EACH FLAT BREAD


INGREDIENTS FOR THE  KABULI CHANAR BORA / GARBANZO BEANS TIKKI

GARBANZO BEAN / KABULI CHANA : 350-400GM
CHOPPED CORIANDER : 1 MEDIUM TEA CUP
CHOPPED ONION : 1 SMALL TEA CUP
GARLIC CLOVE : 4-5 BIG OR 8-10 SMALL SIZED
GREEN CHILLI : 3-4
CRUSHED BLACK PEPPER : 1 TSP
CUMIN POWDER : 2TSP
CORIANDER POWDER : 2TSP
RED CHILLI POWDER : 1TSP
LEMON JUICE : 4-5 TBSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 100-150 ML [I DID NOT DEEP FRY IN A LOT OF OIL]


PROCEDURE :

Let us do the Garbanzo Beans Pakora now!

I had soaked the Kabuli Chana in water for about 8 hours. They expanded really well and I drained the water.

Cristine did all the peeling, cutting, washing job for me, as usual.

We will always do the blending job in batches, else the blender would stop working unable to take the load. We would leave some chopped onion & coriander to be added later!

Each time we will blend the content into a coarse paste, trying not to add water.

                            

We would make any shape & deep fry them in the hot oil, constantly adjusting the heat!

Reserve the fried tikkis on tissue papers before serving.

                           

Cristine looked after the frying part mostly while I was making the flatbreads / doi porotas. They had to be done simultaneously for a good tasting meal.

For this plain yogurt and self-raising flour porotas / flat breads, I took the flour, salt, 2 tbsp oil and the plain yogurt in a wide mouthed bowl.

We have to mix and rub the content for 2-3 minutes.

Cristine kneaded the dough for some 10-12 minutes to get a smooth dough. We can add more of yogurt if required but not water.

Thereafter, we have to keep it covered with a moist, clean piece of cloth for 15-20 minutes.

We will take it out and knead for 2-3 minutes.

We will tear of portions of a tennis size ball, smoothen between the two palms, roll out round or oval.

We will place it on a hot griddle / tawa, it will by itself form bubbles; we just have to adjust the heat from low to minimal.

After been turned over and cooked each in 1 tsp oil, both sides will look like below respectively.

We had a good meal, prepared a raita too!