Channa Chaat Salad

It's been 4 loooooooong months since I hit the gym; all thanks to having to move to Germany where I could never find the time to work out (read as: lame excuses). And this term has NOT been easy on me at all. Quite the opposite; I hardly find time to make a decent meal. So it was a welcome relief to go to the gym this week. I was having a particularly harsh and bitter week with respect to work, school and the umpteen other things I've taken up and it got too much too handle. When I'm stressed out, the only way to de-stress is to work out. And this is something I learnt from VJ. After quite a rigorous work-out today, I got a call from Karan as I was walking to the car in the parking lot. He wanted a recipe! From me! It made me go "awww" :)

So Karan...here goes the recipe for you. It'a minimum fuss recipe that's healthy as hell and tasty as heaven :)

Ingredients:

Channa dal (white or black) - 1 cup

Red onion - 1 medium or 1/2 of a big one

ROMA Tomatoes - 2

Potato - 1 medium

Green chillies - 1

Coriander (freshly chopped) - 1 tbsp

Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Chaat masala - 1/2 to 1 tsp

Chilli powder - 1/4 tsp

Salt - to taste

Method:

1. Soak the channa dal for 6 hours and cook with 1 cup water in a pressure cook. Wash the potato thoroughly and place it in the same cooker in a separate bowl or within the dal and cook for 2 whistles, take off hot stove and let the pressure release.

2. Remove from the cooker and once it's cooled down I let it sit in the fridge till evening. This helps to keep the channa dal and potatoes firm enough so that the salad doesn't get to a mashed up semi-solid texture.

2. Finely chop the onion, tomatoes, green chillies and coriander.

3. Take the potato and channa dal out of the fridge. Peel the potato and cube into pieces. It's not necessary to bring it back to room temperature but you can choose to do it that way. I like this salad a little cold especially on sweaty summer nights. It makes for an amazing meal in itself.

4. Take a large salad bowl (or any large bowl; you can also just use the cooker itself). Place the chickpeas in it first then add the onions, tomatoes, green chillies, coriander, chaat masala, red chilli powder and salt. Toss until the flavors are blended. Check to make sure the seasoning is right.

5. Now add the potatoes and lemon juice and toss once more albeit lightly to make sure that you don't disfigure the potatoes. Check again for seasoning and you're ready to dig in. You can (or rather should) vary the seasoning to your taste.

Personally for me this is a nice meal in itself especially after a work out. It used to be a favorite during last Spring. I still love it but hardly get the time to make it anymore. But apparently it goes well with puris as per Karan's update :)

Source:

None to cite. I pretty much made this up as I went. If you have a concern, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.