Black Chickpea Pulao

G: What's for lunch? I'm starving.
TCC: Black chickpea Pulao.
G: What's that?
TCC: huh? You know,... chickpeas and pulao.
G: What's in it? It's just rice, right?
TCC: Yeah.
G: Big deal. It's just rice no matter how you cook it. How can it taste dramatically different from all the other varieties of rice?
TCC: But I used to like this a lot and eat it frequently at my friend's place. Her mom made it really spicy and I got the recipe from her recently.
G: But it's just rice and chickpeas. What do you need a recipe for?
TCC: Whatever!
G: What's the curry?
TCC: You eat it with raitha.
G: That's it?
TCC: Yes.
G: But...
TCC: Cold stare.
G: mutters something under the breath...pulls out the left over eggplant curry from the fridge.
TCC: What....?
G: Nothing!

Sigh! The hater of all kinds of rice except plain old boring white rice! Not even Biryani....THE Hyderabadi biryani makes a difference to this guy. And he has to go and marry the ultimate biryani lover. Now THAT would have been the most appropriate title for my blog. Now why didn't I think of this before.

Anyways, I have used the white chickpeas many times, both for chole and curries but had never used the black chickpeas. I tried cooking a pulao with white chickpeas but it really didn't taste good at all. The reason for using those more often is because I didn't have to soak and steam/cook them before. I get the canned variety which tastes pretty good for curries.

As for the black chickpeas, I soaked them overnight and cooked them in a pressure cooker.

Ingredients:

Black chickpeas: 1/2 cup
Basmati rice - 2 cups
Onion, finely chopped, medium - 1
Greeen chillies, finely chopped - 2
Ginger- Garlic paste - 2 tbsp
Garam masala - 1 tbsp
Powdered cloves - 1 tsp
( I add this in addition to the garam masala. I roast the cloves and grind them in a coffee bean grinder)
Cinnamon stick, broken into halves - 1
Cloves - 3
Cardamom, crushed - 2
Salt - 2 tsp + 2 tsp ( adjust to taste)
Red chili powder - 2 tsp
Oil - 2 tbsp


Preparation:

1. Heat oil in a sauce pan. Add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon stick.
2. Add onion and green chillies and saute until onions are tender.
3. Add ginger-garlic paste. Saute until fragrant and the paste browns ( I know, it's already in brown color; but let it get to a darker shade of brown)
   
4. Add cooked chickpeas.
5. Add 2 tsp salt, red chilli powder, garam masala, powdered clove. Stir, cover and cook for a few more minutes until the flavors meld. Turn off heat and let cool.
6. Measure and add rice and water in an electric rice cooker. I usually add 2 cups of water for each cup of basmati rice. Add salt.
7. Add the chickpea mixture to rice and water and turn on the cooker. Stir and let cook. Stir once before the rice is almost done.
8. Garnish with cilantro or mint.

I am sending this to meeta's monthly mingle hosted by nags with the theme, 'ravishing rice recipes'. I expect major eye rollage if G sees this.