The Pitstop

I had always sucked at making plain parathas. They invariably turned out with some uncooked spots or were stiff and hard to eat. I was also made fun of because of the plain parathas I doled out, and this was when I had only about started cooking by myself (read, after getting married). Ask me to cook stuffed parathas any day, and I did well. But I didn’t make any progress over the years with churning out soft plain parathas. I kept recalling how mom would roll out perfect, soft ones each time and tried hard to remember the way she performed each step, but to no avail; the magic was not happening with my hands. With some fluke, some turned okay and some were round as well. But there was no systematic procedure to get consistent shape and softness and edibility. This time I decided enough was enough.

I have been making rase ke chole (chana in gravy) for a number of years now. I recently tried to make pindi chana, which is spicy chana masala with much less gravy; in fact, the gravy has a thick saucy consistency. It goes best with bhature or poori.

I had invited some guests over for lunch a while back, and I made Pindi Chole following Nita Mehta’s recipe from her book “Learn to Cook with Nita Mehta”. I had not tried this recipe before (a big mistake, especially when you’re calling people over; Lesson Learned - always make tried and tested dishes). For this lunch party, I was making twice the quantity of chana from what was listed in Nita’s recipe, so I doubled all the ingredients. The result was not so good; it ended up being too spicy, which I tried to curb by adding a bit of sugar….blah, I was not happy with the outcome.

This weekend I tried the same recipe again, to see if I could make it right by following the recipe to the T.

We’re hooked to the famous British Nigella Lawson’s cookery show, Nigella Bites on Food Network (aired on Travel & Living in India). Different people are hooked for different reasons.