Chickpea Cutlet (Channa/Garbanzo Cutlet)

Chickpea/Channa/Garbanzo bean cutlet

There was this day when I thought I was not getting many exciting things in my kitchen and wanted to raise the bar. I saw another blogger mentioning Sanjeev Kapoor and that did ring a bell, a loud one! I remember I used to watch it on the TV, I think it was Zee TV until it became a paid channel. To think of it, I was always interested in cookery shows. Anyway, I looked up for Sanjeev Kapoor on Google and came across a few interesting sites and sat down to see videos of some recipes. One such interesting recipe was the Shammi Kebab he made using black channa and some channa dal. As much as I rant about healthy eating etc. I somehow am not a fan of black channa though it is undoubtedly more nutritious. And that is why I changed the recipe to suit my taste. If you look at my profile, I would have promised I will share my success and failure in the kitchen and this is one such example. The taste and texture of this dish were very good and so were the flavours. Aesthetically however, I couldn’t quite get it to retain its shape. Find out how you can avoid that at the end of the recipe.


½ cup channa (dry)

1 red onion

2-3 green chillies

Handful of fresh coriander leaves

½ teaspoon each - coriander powder, chilly powder and cumin powder

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

¼ teaspoon garam masala (feel free to increase based on preference)

1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste

Cooking oil

Mozzarella cheese about ¼-1/2 cup

2-3 tablespoons breadcrumbs

Salt to taste

Soak chickpeas in water for about 8-12 hours and pressure cook with ginger garlic paste. Drain the chickpeas and try to keep them as dry as possible.

In a food processor add the chickpeas, green chillies, coriander, spice powders, salt and bread crumbs. Blend so you get a smooth thick batter. If it is not very thick, add some more breadcrumbs. The consistency should be like that for vada wherein you can shape it in your hands.

Make lime sized balls out of this. Flatten each ball in your hand and put some mozzarella cheese in the centre and roll into a ball again. Again, flatten it in your hand.

Add enough oil to just about cover a pan’s surface (remember we are not deep frying). Once the oil is hot, put the cutlets into the oil and fry both sides until golden brown.

Here is the mistake I made – was a bit too generous with the cheese so some cutlets had cheese oozing out while cooking (which I should say made it all the more tempting). Secondly, I did not help them retain their shape. I suggest that the cheese filled cutlets be placed on a plate and covered with cling film and refrigerated for about an hour. This will help them retain their shape while frying.

Am sure it tastes good with tomato ketchup but I finished them just by itself!