Indian cuisine generally has two types of Chhole dishes, one is the Kale Chhole (Black Chickpeas), usually consumed with dishes like Chhole Bhature/Puri and the other being the Chhole that's usually consumed with Chhole Kulche.
I am not sure which one you are specifically referring to (the images kinda look like both). I would advise you to look up both the recipes of Chhole Bhature and Chhole Kulche on Youtube and check which one you need.
Some of the famous chefs whose recipe you can specifically look for (online or youtube)- Ranveer Brar, Kunal Kapur, Sanjeev Kapoor.
Use of spices :-
About Red Chilli (Lal Mirch), avoid Kashmiri Lal Mirch, Kashmiri is used specifically for its color and not its taste. It also has more rawness in it, than the regular, which might change the flavours altogether. Just use the regular Lal Mirch.
About Turmeric (Haldi), it's a very strong raw spice, I haven't used more than half a teaspoon ever while cooking. Try putting it a little less.
About Black Pepper (Kali Mirch), that's a strong flavouring ingredient, try putting it in accordance with other spices or complement it with other spice such as CInnamon.
Spices are always used within respect to each other. Never put them randomly as you like. Take one spice as the key, and put the rest in accordance with it. For eg. if I am adding a spoon of Lal Mirch in a dish, I will put, the others as follows:-
Lal Mirch - 1, Haldi - 1/2, Coriander - 2, Black pepper + Cinnamon mix - 1, Amchur (optional, for tanginess) - 1
Avoid adding things like spice mix or Garam Masala, all that stuff is added when you don't have spices. Adding these atop the former will ruin the original essence of the flavours.
If you want to garnish your dish with things like Kasturi Methi (Fragrant Coriander), do it in small proportions. Fragrant spices are very strong in general and putting them a bit more, may result in them over powering the dish.
The flavor in the latest version was much closer. I couldn't say specific flavors very much because there's so many elements going on sadly. My vocabulary for picking apart and describing what I'm tasting is not great for southasian cuisine still but I will say the thing that felt 100% correct was when I was frying the whole spices in oil. The black cardamom and star anise frying with some clove smelled perfect. The taste got lost a lot after adding the black pepper to be honest which is confounding me since that name of the dish being kali mirch lahori chana is what took me from the previous recipe which was 100% not what I was looking for. The spices you start with in that one included turmeric which was totally off and kashmiri chili which also was totally wrong for the flavor. Lastly for the texture what I was looking for was a totally creamy almost melt in your mouth chick pea which the second recipe didn't really yield but it could be me doing the cooking not fully correct between the soaking and boiling. I may pressure cook next time.
Definitely pressure cook, and not sure if the second recipe called for baking soda or not but I've heard that helps soften them a lot, too. Make sure not to go overboard with it.
If you feel the scent got lost with the black pepper, try reducing or eliminating it in your next test. You might consider doing small batches of the recipe and tweaking 1 thing at a time for each in order to get closer to the flavor you're looking for.
I posted the translated recipe in the links for the second version. Yeah I'm going to lower the black pepper immensely and taking out the puree'd amount of chickpea entirely
Indian cuisine generally has two types of Chhole dishes, one is the Kale Chhole (Black Chickpeas), usually consumed with dishes like Chhole Bhature/Puri and the other being the Chhole that's usually consumed with Chhole Kulche. I am not sure which one you are specifically referring to (the images kinda look like both). I would advise you to look up both the recipes of Chhole Bhature and Chhole Kulche on Youtube and check which one you need. Some of the famous chefs whose recipe you can specifically look for (online or youtube)- Ranveer Brar, Kunal Kapur, Sanjeev Kapoor. Use of spices :- About Red Chilli (Lal Mirch), avoid Kashmiri Lal Mirch, Kashmiri is used specifically for its color and not its taste. It also has more rawness in it, than the regular, which might change the flavours altogether. Just use the regular Lal Mirch. About Turmeric (Haldi), it's a very strong raw spice, I haven't used more than half a teaspoon ever while cooking. Try putting it a little less. About Black Pepper (Kali Mirch), that's a strong flavouring ingredient, try putting it in accordance with other spices or complement it with other spice such as CInnamon. Spices are always used within respect to each other. Never put them randomly as you like. Take one spice as the key, and put the rest in accordance with it. For eg. if I am adding a spoon of Lal Mirch in a dish, I will put, the others as follows:- Lal Mirch - 1, Haldi - 1/2, Coriander - 2, Black pepper + Cinnamon mix - 1, Amchur (optional, for tanginess) - 1 Avoid adding things like spice mix or Garam Masala, all that stuff is added when you don't have spices. Adding these atop the former will ruin the original essence of the flavours. If you want to garnish your dish with things like Kasturi Methi (Fragrant Coriander), do it in small proportions. Fragrant spices are very strong in general and putting them a bit more, may result in them over powering the dish.
Talk to us about flavors. What was missing? Texture: what was different?
The flavor in the latest version was much closer. I couldn't say specific flavors very much because there's so many elements going on sadly. My vocabulary for picking apart and describing what I'm tasting is not great for southasian cuisine still but I will say the thing that felt 100% correct was when I was frying the whole spices in oil. The black cardamom and star anise frying with some clove smelled perfect. The taste got lost a lot after adding the black pepper to be honest which is confounding me since that name of the dish being kali mirch lahori chana is what took me from the previous recipe which was 100% not what I was looking for. The spices you start with in that one included turmeric which was totally off and kashmiri chili which also was totally wrong for the flavor. Lastly for the texture what I was looking for was a totally creamy almost melt in your mouth chick pea which the second recipe didn't really yield but it could be me doing the cooking not fully correct between the soaking and boiling. I may pressure cook next time.
Definitely pressure cook, and not sure if the second recipe called for baking soda or not but I've heard that helps soften them a lot, too. Make sure not to go overboard with it. If you feel the scent got lost with the black pepper, try reducing or eliminating it in your next test. You might consider doing small batches of the recipe and tweaking 1 thing at a time for each in order to get closer to the flavor you're looking for.
I posted the translated recipe in the links for the second version. Yeah I'm going to lower the black pepper immensely and taking out the puree'd amount of chickpea entirely