R053Vanpayar Thoran
Brown cowpea with grated coconut
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
Plan ahead: plus 8–12 hours soaking and 20 minutes pressure-cooking — required.
The re-engineeringNo coconut milk. Thirty grams of roasted coconut paste (M09) carries the body at roughly a third of the saturated fat of the 200 ml of thick milk a kadala curry usually gets, and brings 4 g of fibre with it. Oil at 12 g, and 200 g of shallots and 150 g of tomato doing the rest.
This is the kadala curry of a Kerala breakfast, given a little more gravy and enough weight to be a dinner. The North Indian chana masala is a tomato-and-amchur dish; the Kerala version is a coconut dish, and varutharacha — roasted-ground coconut — is the register it wants. It also happens to be the highest-fibre recipe in this book at 18 g a serving, which is most of a day's target from one bowl, and the reason is the black chickpea's remarkable 25.2 g of fibre per 100 g dry.
Before you start: Take the M09 out of the freezer when you start the pressure cooker. If you have none, allow an extra fifteen minutes and read the sourcing note in R057.
Kerala Chana Masala
Active 30 minutes Total 45 minutes
Scale
4 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓200 g (1 cup) kadala (black chickpea), soaked 8–12 hours
- ✓2 g (⅓ tsp) ground turmeric, for the cooking water
- ✓12 g (2½ tsp) coconut oil
- ✓200 g (about 20) shallots, sliced
- ✓25 g (1½ tbsp) ginger-garlic-green chilli paste (M16)
- ✓25 fresh curry leaves
- ✓12 g (2 tbsp) ground coriander
- ✓6 g (1 tsp) Kashmiri chilli powder
- ✓3 g (½ tsp) fennel seed, crushed
- ✓150 g (1½) tomatoes, chopped
- ✓4 g (⅔ tsp) 70:30 salt (M07)
- ✓30 g roasted coconut paste (M09), thawed
- ✓4 g (¾ tsp) Kerala garam masala (M01)
- ✓250 ml water, plus the pulse cooking liquid
Allergens: None of the major allergens as the recipe is written. Sesame or peanuts — whichever of the two oils you use (it reaches the dish through M16).
Equipment: Pressure cooker; heavy 26 cm pan or clay manchatti. Substitute: any heavy pan. Clay suits the tomato's acid and gives a gentler simmer.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 260 kcal |
| Protein | 12 g |
| Fibre | 18 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 31 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 49 g |
| Sugars | 11 g |
| Fat | 10 g |
| Saturated fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 300 mg |
From ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central. Per-serving figures stay the same when you scale.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Drain the soaked chickpeas, discard the water, and pressure-cook in 500 ml fresh water with the turmeric for at full pressure. Release naturally. Keep the cooking liquid — it is dark, slightly viscous, and it is what makes the gravy taste of kadala.
- Heat the oil in the pan over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook until they have collapsed and gone the colour of weak tea, . Uncover the pan for the last so the water leaves.
- Add the M16 and curry leaves and cook , until the raw garlic smell has lifted.
- Add the coriander, chilli powder and fennel. Stir constantly 60–90 seconds, until they darken by a shade. Splash in a tablespoon of water if they catch.
- Add the tomato and the salt and cook until the tomato has broken down entirely and a rim of oil shows at the edge of the mass, .
- Add the chickpeas with their cooking liquid and enough water to make a loose gravy, about 250 ml. Simmer , crushing a spoonful of the chickpeas against the side of the pan to thicken it.
- Stir in the M09 and simmer more, until the gravy is dark, thick enough to coat the chickpeas, and free of any raw-spice edge.
- Finish with the M01 off the heat and rest .
Why this worksCrushing a spoonful of the cooked chickpeas releases starch and cell-wall material that thickens the gravy — the same job flour or coconut milk would do, from the pulse already in the pot. The M09 then thickens further as a particle suspension rather than an emulsion, which is why this curry reheats and freezes without splitting where a coconut-milk version would. The 18 g of fibre per serving is not an added ingredient; it is what a black chickpea is.
Sourcing note
Black chickpea — kala chana, desi chana, Bengal gram whole — is the correct pulse and carries far more fibre than the pale kabuli type. White chickpeas work and give a softer, floury dish; soak them 8–12 hours and pressure-cook 18–22 minutes. Tinned chickpeas, 2 × 400 g drained and rinsed, are an acceptable weekday shortcut: check the sodium on the tin and drop the M07 to 2.5 g if it is above 200 mg per 100 g.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: 31 g of net carbohydrate with 18 g of fibre alongside it, at a category glycaemic index of 34 — an estimated glycaemic load near 10. Note that fibre at this level can be uncomfortable if your usual intake is low; build up over a fortnight rather than starting here.
Blood pressure: 300 mg, the highest in this chapter, from 4 g of salt across four servings. Three grams brings it to about 250 mg and the M01 covers it.
Cholesterol: 5 g of saturated fat, against about 14 g for the same dish made with 200 ml of thick coconut milk. That is the M09 substitution in one number.
Swap it
White chickpea (kabuli) → fibre falls to about 12 g per serving and the dish goes softer and paler. Still good.
Coconut milk for M09 → 150 ml of second extraction at step 7. Lighter and paler, and about the same saturated fat; first extraction would take it to 14 g.
Add 200 g of diced green plantain or ash gourd at step 6 → six servings and more volume.
Add 200 g of shredded cooked chicken or 150 g of chopped leftover beef at step 6 → protein to about 22 g per serving. This is the best way in the book to stretch a small quantity of meat, and it is what the chapter opposite is arguing for.
Make ahead · store · freeze
Better on day two. Fridge 4 days. Freeze 3 months — no emulsion, so nothing to break. Reheat at a simmer with water to loosen; it thickens considerably as it cools.
Leftovers
Reduce it hard and it becomes a filling for pathiri, a wrap or a toasted sandwich. Or mash it coarsely, add lime and raw onion, and eat it cold as a salad.
Troubleshooting
Gravy thin: the chickpeas were not crushed at step 6, or the cooking liquid was discarded. Both matter.
Raw, dusty taste: the M09 needs its 5 minutes at step 7 and the powders need their 90 seconds at step 4.
Chickpeas hard: the soak was short. There is no rescue at the gravy stage; give them another 8 minutes under pressure before you build the curry.
Serve with
R004 Puttu · R001 Appam · R015 Matta Rice · R027 Ayala Varuthathu
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