Chana/ Chickpeas Sundal

Navratri is a very special festival for us Hindus, Nav means nine and ratri means night. It's 9 special days celebration where the first 3 days devoted to Goddess Durga, the second set of 3 days for Goddess Lakshmi and last 3 days devoted to Goddess Saraswathi. We fast on these days and have only vegetarian meals.

All this years, I only observe fasting on these days and never have had a proper celebration but this year I have decided to learn the details of it. This is the very first year after my marriage I'm preparing for a proper Navratri celebration, none of us want to forget our origin and religious festivals right? Let's past it on to others and be proud of it.

As for the first day, I have prepared Chickpeas Sundal and Ven Pongal for neiveidyam. All the dishes cooked on these days doesn't have garlic and onion or also called as Sattvik Dishes.

Let's get to the recipe;

Ingredients:

1 cup chickpeas (soaked overnight min 7 hours)

2 dry red chili

1 tsp of mustard seed

1 sprig of curry leaves

1 tbsp of oil

1 tsp of salt

2 cups of water

Wash the chickpeas that have been soaked overnight and pressure cook with water and salt until 3-5 whistle, once done drain the chickpeas on a colander and leave aside.

Now for tempering, take a pan-heat oil and add mustard seeds let it crackle. Then add dry chili and curry leaves. Turn off the flame and pour this tempering on cooked chickpeas and stir well.

Now our Chickpeas Sundal is ready to be served. I didn't add grated coconut as other because we prefer it this way.

I'm sending this recipe to Priya's Event Navratri 2012