Choley like it's Sunday!

This is my husband's favorite dish! At one point I made this dish twice in one week! My husband never gets tired of it!

Choley Poori is a garbanzo beans curry served with a soft fluffy deep fried bread. It is a very popular weekend brunch item in Pakistan and people stand in lines for hours to get choley poori from their favorite vendors. Choley Poori are often accompanied with Achar(pickled vegetables) and Halwa(a sweet confection). Today we will focus on learning Choley, but in future posts, I will teach you how to make Poori, my favorite Suji(Semolina) Halwa, and Achar.

Since my husband loves Choley Poori so much, I have played around with many recipes from different regions of Pakistan. The recipe described below is my go-to method for making choley on a weekend. Don't worry, we will cover Punjabi and Sindhi style choley one day as well!

Checkout 5 Pillars of Taste to learn more about exactly which spices we are using today!

Ingredients

2 cups garbanzo beans

1 onion

2 tomatoes

1 bay leaf

1 star anise

3 whole spice

2 dried red chilli

2 green chilies

1 cinnamon stick

2 cardamom pods

Salt (according to taste)

1 tbsp Kashmiri Red chili powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp ginger paste

1 tsp garlic paste

2-4 tbsp oil

Directions

1. Soak garbanzo beans for 1-2 hours in cold water, preferably overnight.

2. Pressure cook the garbanzo beans in twice as much water and let it stand for an hour. Tip: If using a pressure cooker, pressure cook on high heat for 30 minutes. If using an instant pot, pressure cook on high for 20 minutes. If using a regular pot, cook on high heat for 1.5-2 hrs until garbanzo beans are 90% cooked.

3. Heat up oil in a pot. You can also do this on sauté mode if using an Instant Pot.

4. Sauté onion and tomatoes in oil until the onions are translucent and the tomatoes have started sweating. Peel off tomato skin with tongs and let the onion and tomato mixture cook for another 1-2 minutes.

5. Blend the tomato and onion mixture and keep aside.

6. In the same pot, sauté ginger and garlic paste for 30 seconds.

7. Add cumin seeds, bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, star anise, whole spice, and dried red chili and sauté for a minute.

8. Next, add the onion and tomato mixture and the remainder dry spices to the sautéd spices. Cook the mixture until the oil separates.

9. Add cooked garbanzo beans into the pot along with a 1-2 cup of the water it was cooked in. The amount of water depends on how much gravy you want. For instant pot, you can use the same ratio of water.

10. Cook on low heat for another 10-15 minutes until the desired softness for garbanzo beans is reached. For instant pot, cook on high pressure for 5 minutes. If you want to thicken the gravy, switch the instant pot on sauté mode, and vaporize the water for 5-10 mins.

11. Squeeze lemon juice on top and serve with fresh cilantro.

12. Choley are ready! Enjoy with roti, rice, or poori. I will cover the poori recipe soon!