Chana Dal Kebabs (Vegetarian Kebabs with Chickpeas)

Blogging Marathon# 30: Week 2/ Day 2
Theme: Get it Rolled
Dish: Chana Dal Kebabs

Day 2 of BM# 30 and today's dish under 'Get it Rolled' theme is Chana dal Kebabs. When you think of kebabs, you think of skewers and meat. Here's some Wiki gyan about Kebabs - 'Kebab is derived from the Arabic word 'kabab' which means to 'fry'. I especially like this story about the origin of kebabs -- Persian soldiers used their swords to cook meat on open fire and hence started the 'kebab' way of cooking meat.

Well since this is a vegetarian food blog, I decided to make some kebabs with beans. This recipe is inspired from one of the Telugu cooking shows. Original recipe used only chickpeas, but I had some cooked mixed beans (from this dal biryani I made earlier) which is used instead. These kebabs were filling and delicious.

I made a couple on the skewer and got restless because of the amount of baby sitting involved. So with the rest of the mixture, I just made patties and shallow fried them. These are great as is with a dipping suce (I served with avocado-cream sauce), perfect to be served at a party. I served them on a salad for a simple and healthy lunch.

Ingredients:

Chickpeas + Adzuki beans + Moong beans - 1cup cooked (or just use Chickpeas)
Onion - 1 small, finely chopped
Green chilies - 2 (adjust as per taste), very finely chopped
Bread slices - 2
Ginger + garlic paste - 1tsp
Garam masala - 1tsp
Chaat masala - 1tsp
Salt - to taste
Lemon juice - 2tsp

Method:

• Take the beans in a blender and grind them to an almost fine paste. Some texture is fine. Take this mixture into a bowl.
• In the same blender, blend the bread slices to coarse powder. Reserve about ¼cup of bread powder and add the rest of it to the bean mixture. 
• Add all the other ingredients to the bean mixture and mix well to form a slightly sticky dough. If it is too sticky then add the reserved bread powder.
• Roll the dough around a kebab stick or skewer (alternately form into patties); cook on a preheated skillet with a touch of oil until all the sides are evenly cooked and turn golden brown.
• Serve hot.

Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked today for BM# 30.