BeleSo this little Rajasthani voice in my head spoke to me recently

voice: How dare you?

me : What? What happened? 😯

voice: How dare you go 12 posts  without posting any Rajasthani dish. You owe it to the soil of Marwaad. ” 🙄 You owe it to your birth place. 🙄 🙄 🙄

me: Hey! I thought the blog wasn’t going anywhere, you know.

voice: म्हारे सागे होसियारी???? (Don’t act smart.)

me: How about I post two back to back rajasthani dishes to make up for the delay?

Voice: छोरी, बातां कम ओर काम जादा। (Girl, Action speaks louder than words.)

Sigh.. How could I ignore my true self’s voice? But when I think about Rajasthani dishes the first few things that come to my mind ( Ghevar, Dal-Baati, Gatte ki sabji, Malpua) are so popular that pretty much every blog out there ( And there are a lot of them, trust me) has its own version of it. And even though I will also post my take on them too, some day, I wanted to start with something that’s still not all over the cyber space. Bele (बेले) is like a twin brother of gatta curry, albeit more healthy and less time consuming. We make bele all the time in our household because I love all things chickpea flour and yogurt, so it’s not surprising that that’s is the first thing that came to my mind when I thought about a Rajasthani dish. Chickpea flour and yogurt have a huge influence in Rajasthani cuisine because green vegetables used to be a rarity in Rajasthan in old days. The difference between bele and gatte is that firstly, bele are not fried after boiling and secondly, the gravy is quite simple and light, unlike gatta gravy. So the outcome is a very light and delicious dish that goes well with chapati or parantha.

Bele

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 4 people

Ingredients

    For Bele
  • 1 1/2 cup chickpea flour
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. chili powder
  • 1/4 tsp. roasted cumin powder
  • 2 1/2 tbsp. oil
  • Less than 1/4 cup or as required water
    • For boiling bele
  • 3 cup water
    • For the gravy
  • 2 tbsp. oil
  • 4 big cloves chopped garlic
  • 1 cup yogurt
  • 3 tsp. coarse coriander powder
  • 1/2 green chili
  • 1/4 tsp. turmeric powder
  • 1 tsp. chili powder
  • 1 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1 3/4 cup water
  • water left after boiling bele
  • chopped cilantro

Instructions

  1. To chickpea flour, add salt, chili powder, cumin powder and oil. Mix well.
  2. Adding little water at a time, make not too stiff, not too soft dough.
  3. Take little dough at a time, roll it into long cylinder of 1/4 inch width
  4. Boil water in a wide pan. Add few bele at a time and let it cook. When they are cooked, they will float on the water. Give it an extra minute and then sieve it out of water. Add next batch of bele to boil.
  5. Once all bele are cooked, cut them into 2 inch long pieces. Save the remaining water.
  6. Heat oil in a pan. Add garlic and green chili to it.
  7. Lower the heat and add turmeric, chili powder, coriander powder and salt to oil. Take the left over water after boiling bele and mix yogurt with it. Beat well. Add the other 1 3/4 cup water to yogurt mixture and immediately add to the oil.
  8. Add bele to the gravy and cook till it oozes oil and becomes little thick in consistency. Add cilantro and serve hot.

Notes

1.Mixing yogurt with the left over water and also adding bele to the gravy right after adding yogurt prevents yogurt from curdling. 2. When you add bele to the boiling water, stir it a little so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

https://www.morethancurry.com/bele/

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