Sometimes it feels like summer for a few days (or hours) and you can
immediately notice this in the supermarket by the rush on the bbq meat
and pre-packed salads.
Unfortunately this is in a lot of cases a Belgian BBQ : quickly grill
supermarket meat, combine this with some pre-packed salad leaves,
tomatoes and grated carrots and finish with sauce from a plastic
bottle.
Of course enough beer will be available to flush all of this. :-)
I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t eat a lot of meat and I don’t like rabbit
food, so I do end up rather hungry. :-(
We are going to solve this by making side and main dishes that pair very well with bbq, are fast and easy to prepare in advance and that are tasty warm or cold.
Let’s start with a recipe I prepare virtually every week because it’s
great for lunch : Chana sundal.
This is a salad made with chickpeas, mustard seeds, cocos, curry leaves,
black gram dal, chilli and lemon.
Sundal is a dish originally prepared in India for the [Navaratri festival. You can also use other lentils or vegs : 9 Sundal recipes.]{style=“color: #000000;“}
[On other sites I notice this is also a populair Indian street food snack. ]{style=“color: #000000;“}
You have to make a trip to your local Indian store because we need 2 authentic Indian ingredients that are difficult to substitute.
First of all,
asafoetida,
called ”duivelsdrek” (translation : devil’s shit ;-) ) in Dutch.
This is the resin of a fennel like plant but the taste is a mix of fried
onion or leeks with a bit of garlic. We also need, black gram
dal,
or urad dal.
These are small lentils. I prefer to use black gram dal because visually
the shiny black dots look great!
Maybe the most important ingredient : curry leaves. This creates the
aroma of a mild “curry powder” but are the leaves of the Murraya
koenigiiplant.
Curry leaves are an essential ingredient in south indian and sri lankan
cuisine.
Asafoetida is available in small quantities and will be ok for 1 - 2
years.
We are going to use the dal in another taste indian snack within a few
weeks. The curry leaves freeze very well so do plan a summery trip to an
Indian or Asian supermarket!
If you start with canned chickpeas or boil and cool the chickpeas in
advance using a pressure cooker, you can prepare this dish in less than
10 minutes.
It is a real Indian stir fry dish :-)
You can easily adapt the amount of chillies to your own heat tolerance.
The result is a tangy chickpea salad sharp because of the mustard seeds,
the heat of the chillies, a nutty accent of the toasted black gram dal,
fresh because of the lemon but also buttery caused by the chickpeas
combined with the sweet coconut.
In some cases people also add green mango for an extra fruity, sweet and sour accent. This is optional but try to use sour green apples, unripe plums or even peaches!
And you can be pretty sure nobody else will turn up with the same dish![wpurp-searchable-recipe]Indian chickpea salad - Chana Sundal - - chickpeas ((drained and rinsed - about 480 gr)), oil ((coconut/ghee if you are serving this warm or vegetable oil, NO olive oil)), mustard seeds, red chilli ((dried or more)), black gram dhal, asafoetida, curry leaves, dried coconut, lemon ((juice)), green chillies ((optional)), salt ((to your own taste)), green mango ((optional - or any other sweet-sour fruit)), Drain and rinse the chickpeas.; Heat the oil in a pan or wok. ; Add the mustard seeds, dried red chilli, black gram dal and stir. Lower the heat as soon as the mustard seeds start to pop.; Add the asafoetida and curry leaves and stir fry for 30 - 1 minute till they release their aromas.; Lower the heat and add the chickpeas and dried coconut.; Finish with plenty of lemon juice, salt and extra green chillies and/or fruit depending on your own taste or heat tolerance. ; - [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]