All I need to do is just soak some rajma and enjoy garma garam Rajma chawal. I make it on the days when there are no vegetables in the fridge or when I know I'll be too busy or tired to cook the next day. Today, I have my Ma in law's very simple Rajma here. with a gentle sun overhead and some cows and goats grazing at a little distance. The simple local man in the shop had served us steaming hot rajma and chawal in much used but shining clean steel plates, that we ate sitting on the grass covered slopes right there beside the road. Right on the meandering highway in the middle of the hills, with nothing but quiet all around,
The best rajma I have tasted so far was at a small, rickety, half slanted shop sitting on the hills of Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. Rajma that has its own flavour and is not subdued by strong garlic and onions. Simple, flavourful, melt in the mouth Rajma. But later that one line became my guru mantra when I took to the kitchen.Īnd have been cooking simple dishes ever since.īut this post is not about Chole. "A bhindi ki sabzi should taste of bhindi too." Later B told me that to make a dish good, you don't need too many things, especially masalas. Papa took some on the plate and kept chasing the chana pieces around. not at all ready to be friends.Īnd worse. And the chanas that were supposed to be soft and all wrapped up in masalas and love and each other, were each standing seperately, turning away from the other. The gravy was not thick, it was yellow water. at least among the Rajasthanis in my family. With N didi, my eldest cousin who lived in the same city, on the phone, constantly guiding me from the soaking of the chana the night before to the end grounding of garam masalas, I finally presented the chola masala for dinner with a flourish. Just after my marraige, I had tried to impress B and his family with my first dish. were added and then again were rounded off with the garam masala, this kind of cooking was not only a welcome change to my palate but also was a huge help to the novice cook in me. Considering that I've always eaten dishes made with onion+garlic paste fried masala, to which another n number of powdered or wet masalas like the dhania, jeera etc. My Ma in law is, naturally, an expert when it comes to rustling up such dishes. and a wonderfully simple and flavourful dish is born. A little ginger here, a little tomato or curd there.
So while they do eat all kinds of lentils and legumes like the chola, rajma, etc., they are prepared in a very simple way. Which means it is not only a pure veg preference of food, as in no chicken/mutton/fish/eggs, but also pure veg as in no onion and garlic too.