Breakfast Archives - Dees Platter

Mostly people associate chilka moong daal with khichdi vaali daal. My mother used to prepare this lentil with spinach on sim heat of “mitti ka chulha” during winter. Later she used to add dhaba style desi ghee ka tadka. No matter how much I try, but I can never get that heavenly taste in my pressure cooker cooked daal.

During winter sometimes my mother used to prepare “cheele” (Indian style pancake with green lentils) with moong daal for dinner along with any green chutney or pickle. Moong daal cheela is a very popular snack during North Indian marriage feast. There they also add grated paneer to make it look like a part of marriage celebration feast. You can witness a long queue of people inside the shamiyana (place where marriage ceremony happens) to have hot moong ki daal ke cheele.

These cheele could be a part of any meal of the day – but generally they are prepared for breakfast. As lentils are very good for our health, this breakfast will be a good option for all age group members of the family.

Ingredients

Green split moong daal 2 cups
Water 4 cups
Salt, red chilli powder, asafoetida (hing), chopped green chillies and ginger.

Ingredients :

Wash and soak moong daal overnight or for three hours in the morning. It will puff up nicely after soaking.

Don’t throw away water and grind daal along with fresh ginger, green chillies, Asafoetida, red chilli powder and salt. Use very little quantity of the saved water while grinding. Grated daal should have dropping consistency, neither too thin nor too thick .

Heat tava, grease it with little quantity of oil.

Spread two small size spoons of batter on it.

Reduce the heat to medium. When it starts looking dry from the top, spread some oil around the edges of cheela. With the help of flat spatula, start scrubbing from the sides and turn it to the other side.

Apply oil on the roasted side of cheela and follow the same process for the other side too.

When cheela is properly roasted on both the sides, serve it hot with any chutney, pickle or sauce.

Rava, samolina or suji is a very versatile ingredient. With rava we can cook savoury breakfast, fry snacks, prepare sweets, add it with other flours to give crunch, and can even can bake bread too!

In North India we prepare different types of “cheela” for breakfast. Cheela is very similar to South Indian dosa, but the biggest difference is that cheela batter is not fermented. Cheela can be prepared with your choice of daal (lentils), gram flour and rava. Moong daal cheela with paneer is a very popular snack stall during marriages.

During winter season at my parents’ house my mother used to prepare rava cheela by adding grated vegetables in it for dinner with coriander and tomato chutney. Sitting, chatting and having dinner with all family members in the kitchen used to be very cosy and warm.

Initially we used to prepare cheela on iron tava but then non stick tava was introduced and my mother also bought one. But right from the beginning I never liked non-stick tava. One has to be very careful while using them and while cleaning you can’t scrub them completely to clean the oil. Call me old fashioned, but my preference always remained solid iron tava. Slowly, I became so good in preparing thinnest dosa or cheela that you give me any thin or thick iron tava – I can give you the best cheela or dosa from it. Not boasting, but practice makes you perfect!!

Don’t you agree….

Ingredients :

Rava, salt, red chilli powder, a small pinch of asafoetida powder and turmeric powder, onion, carrot, coriander leaves, cabbage, ginger, and oil.

Process:

In a bowl take rava and add water in that to soak it for half an hour. In the meantime grate carrots, ginger and finely chop onions, cabbage and coriander leaves. After half an hour add all chopped and grated vegetables in soaked rava.

Mix everything well. If batter is thick cheela will be thick and crisp, if it is thin, cheela would be thin and soft. If you are a beginner, better start with thick batter.

Heat thick bottomed or non-stick tava and slightly grease it with oil. Once tava is hot, reduce the heat to sim and with the help of the ladle take batter and place it on tava.

Slowly spread it with ladle evenly and increase the heat to medium to high.

Slowly cheela would start looking dry – spread very little oil all around it on tava and reduce heat to sim. With the help of flat ladle slowly start with the edges and without breaking turn it to the other side.