Chole Bhature – Chole Bhature is a very popular dish when eating out. It is a mini meal generally served with pickle and tomato onion salad. In restaurants, you get this huge balloon like bhaturas that are simply hard to resist.

Everybody has a different taste in our house so they want to order different dishes but as food starts coming to our table everybody wants to eat everything. So whenever we are eating out we order one plate each of chole bhature, masala dosa and chow mien. Then we start thinking about rest of the order. 🙂

Though Bhatura is deep fried food its dough is fermented so we do not mind eating it. And chole, as we all know, is protein packed.

My kids love to eat chole bhature and I love making them at home. These hardly take any time to make. Soak channa in the morning. Prepare the dough and leave it to ferment. So when you come into the kitchen in the evening you feel like there is not much left to be done. And this fry really fast.

How to make Bhature

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Fermenting time: 5-6 hours
frying time: 30 minutes
Makes around 15 bhature ( number of bhature will depend on size)

Ingredients:
For Bhature:

2 cups Maida (plain flour)
½ cup sour curd
¾ cup of water
Oil for deep frying

To make chole Bhature

for bhature:

Add water to the curd and mix properly. If my curd is not very sour I generally leave it out of the fridge for 1-2 hours.

In a wide bowl take maida and with the help of water curd mixture make a smooth dough. Use more water if needed. 
Leave it covered for 5-6 hours for the dough to rise. In winters you might need to keep the dough out in the sun for it to ferment properly. But in summer you can keep it indoors.

Your dough will rise after fermentation.

Take a ball of dough.

Press lightly between your palms. Grease the rolling pin and chakla/board with oil.

Roll out the dough into an oblong shape.

Heat oil in the kadhai. When the oil is hot fry one bhatura at a time. Slip bhatura in hot oil and let the bhatura inflate and turn light brown. Turn it over and cook the other side also.

Oil is quite hot for frying bhature so you have to be quite careful while frying.

Drain on a tissue paper or newspaper to remove the excess oil. Serve with hot chole.

 

For Chole:

I cup Chole( Chickpeas) soaked in 3 cups of water for 7-8 hours
1 tbsp chana daal soaked for 30 minutes
salt to taste (around 2 tsp)
1/2 cup grated lauki/bottle Gourd ( optional)

Note: Adding lauki to chole while boiling is optional but I strongly recommend it. This way you can sneak in lauki(most difficult vegetable to feed kids) in your kid’s diet without their knowing it. It blends in the gravy and is undetectable 😉

For gravy:

2 large tomatoes
1 fresh green chili cut into small pieces
1 tbsp ginger
½ tsp asafetida

1 tbsp oil

½ tsp Jeera (cumin seeds)
2 tej patte (bay leaves)

½ tsp red chili powder
1 tbsp channa masala (I use Everest)

½ tsp garam masala
Fresh coriander leaves to garnish

Serve with:
mango pickles
pickled ginger

To make Chole for chole bhature

Pressure cook chole and channa dal with salt for 25-30 minutes (Two whistles on high and then turn the flame to low. Let it cook on the slow flame). Add more water if required. I generally keep 3 cups of water for 1 cup chole.

Cut tomatoes into small pieces or puree them with ginger and green chili in the blender. I puree them as my son does not like tomato pieces in it.

Meanwhile to prepare masala, heat oil in a kadhai. Add asafetida, jeera and tej patta. When jeera starts to crackle add chole masala and red chili powder. Immediately add tomato puree while stirring continuously. Cook for some time till oil separates.

When steam escapes, open the cooker and check whether the chole is soft and cooked properly or not. If not cook them again for some time. If they are properly cooked add them to the gravy and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add water if needed. Add garam masala to
the chole.

Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with bhature.

 

Here is the verdict 🙂

Enjoy Chole Bhature at home.

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