Black Channa / Kadale kalu curry

 As i write this recipe, my mouth is watery and craving for the flavors of this curry. It is worth the time spent in roasting and grinding the masalas. I usually make this for breakfast with dosa and continue the same for lunch with steamed hot rice or Ragi balls. But this time I made this with Kerala appam learnt from my dear mallu neighbor Riya. Thanks to her, these days I have started to learn and cook Kerala cusine too, look forward for more recipes :). Back to the curry, this is a change from the usual dal sambhar, so make it when you are bored of the veggie sambhar, since channa is good for health too:).  

 

Ingredients : 

Soaked channa

                                            

For grinding : (I batch) 

1 cup of shredded coconut  

8-10 shallots 

10 pods of garlic 

 

Dry spices for grinding ( II batch)

Red chillies 5-6  

Channa dal 2 tsp 

Urad dal 1 tsp  

Cinnamon 1" 

Cloves 3-4 

Peppercorns 7-8 

Jeera 1 tsp

 

Other ingredients 

Rock salt as per taste 

Sambhar powder 2-3 tsp 

Tamarind and jaggery extract 1tsp

For seasoning:   

4 tsp cooking oil 

Mustard seeds 1/2 tsp 

Pinch of Hing / asafoetida   

Pinch of turmeric powder

 Curry leaves and red chillies    

Method: 

Soak channa dal overnight or at least for 5-6 hours

Pressure cook it with 1 potato chopped into cubes (optional) and 3tomatoes. Don't chop tomatoes, needs to be blended later. Cook up to 2 whistles and let it cool
 

Start dry roasting all masala ingredients separately. Both batch 1 and 2 needs to be slightly roasted.

  

Grind the batch 1 and 2 masalas separately. Add the pressured cooked tomatoes and a handful of cooked channa dal with batch 1 ingredients for grinding. 

 

Batch 1 yields a creamy coconut paste. Batch 2 shall yield dry flavourful masala powder

 

Meanwhile using a colander separate water and pressure cooked channa. Store the water for further use.

In a thick bottomed pan heat oil, add the batch 1 grounded masala and fry until the raw smell leaves

Then add the batch 2 masala and roast for about 5 mins, let oil separate from the masalas

  

Mix in 1/2 tsp of turmeric and 2 tsp sambhar powder and fry toor 2 mins

  

In goes a spoonful of tamarind extract and a little jaggery(to balance the acidity of tamarind)

 

To this mixture add cooked channa

 

Give it a good stir for about 2-3 mins

 

Then add desired amount of water and boil for about 5 mins. Mix water depending upon how hick / think you want the curry. However this curry should be slightly thicker than the usual sambhar since we use it for dosa.

 

It's time to add salt as per taste

 

Time for seasoning :  

In a small pan heat oil and temper with mustard seeds, hing / asafoetida, dry red chillies

  

Pour in the seasoning onto the boiling curry and switch off the stove

Tastes best with appam, dosa or steamed rice.

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