Channa Sundal (Chickpea Salad)

 Channa Sundal (Chickpea Salad)

It is Navaratri, a wonderful and colourful Hindu festival. I love this time of the year as it is filled with fun and is usually buzzing with activities. The next major festival is Deepavali, which is usually a high budget festival, meaning parents spend a lot of money on getting dresses and fireworks. Navaratri is usually not necessarily a high budget festival although we would have a number of guests visiting home to see the ‘golu’, the arrangement of dolls depicting Hindu mythology and mom would usually buy gifts for them. Towards the end of Navartri is Saraswati pooja and mom usually buys a simple outfit for me and that would be my warm up for Deepawali shopping! Anyway, one of the important part of Navaratri is making ‘neivedhyam’ (special offering) to the God and for this festival it is usually sundal. This is a simple dish usually made with different lentils or pulses and mildly spiced. It is usually prepared in the evening and after making the offering to God it is distributed to guests. The fun part is making people especially kids sing in praise of the God and take the sundal in return. This is my first sundal recipe on the blog and uses chickpea.

1/3 cup chickpea, soaked for 8-12 hours and cooked
2 teaspoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon green chilly paste or finely chopped green chillies
2 tablespoon coconut powder/dessicated coconut or fresh coconut grated
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder
Asafoetida
1 sprig curry leaves
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
Cooking oil

In a skillet heat less than a teaspoon oil and add the mustard seeds. Once it splutters add curry leaves, asafoetida and turmeric powder.

Fry until the curry leaves are slightly crisp and add the cooked channa/chickpea

Add the ginger paste, chilly paste, coconut and salt. Fry for 3-4 minutes

Sundal ready!

I pressure cooked the chickpea but ensured it is not mushy.