Chana Towers

Living in Brighton, I'm almost spoilt for choice when it comes to finding a vegan meal out.   For special occasions, however, Terre-a-Terre is usually the destination, due to its beautiful presentation and wonderful pairings of flavours.  So when I saw their cookbook was out, I excitedly ordered a copy.  Unfortunately, as I suspected, making their food is not easy.  Every recipe involves about 5 different elements, all requiring about 8 ingredients each, to be cooked separately then assembled at the end.  So, instead of attempting any of their recipes I thought I'd try and come up with a simpler version of their Chana Chat, which might not be as impressive, but would (hopefully) be tasty and would at least be something I can actually attempt without devoting a whole week of my life to the sourcing, preparation, cooking, and presentation of the meal.

So this is what I did:

Chana Towers

Spice Mix
1/2 tsp each cumin, mustard, coriander, fenugreek and fennel seeds
1/2 tsp each salt, amchoor (dried mango powder) and paprika
pinch chilli powder


Chana Masala

2 tbsp oil
1tsp cumin seeds
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 inch piece ginger, finely chopped/grated
1tsp crushed green chilli
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 medium potato, chopped into 1cm cubes
1/2 tin tomatoes, chopped
tablespoon tomato puree
Juice 1/4 lemon
1tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp spice mix


Discs:

100g plain flour
50g gram (chick pea) flour
1/3 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
pinch salt
50ml water
25g soya margarine, melted
sunflower oil for deep frying
coriander


Method
 
Start by making your spice mix: toast the whole spices in a frying pan until they begin to brown and smell great.  Pour into a spice grinder along with the salt, amchoor, paprika and chilli, and blitz til fine.

Once this is done you can start on the discs: in a medium-sized mixing bowl, sift together flours, then add cumin and salt. Gradually pour in the water, mixing all the time, until you have a smooth paste.  Add the marg and mix to form a soft dough.  Stick in the fridge for half an hour.
Once chilled, roll out onto floured surface until very thin (approx 1mm thick).  Then use a large cookie cutter to cut out circles.  (Or, if you realise, as I did, that all of your cookie cutters are shaped like either bats, teapots, or dinosaurs, you could always resort to using the rim of a cup measure).  Place on a lightly floured plate and stick back in the fridge for another half hour.

Now start the chana masala: heat the oil in a saucepan, add the cumin seeds and fry for 20 seconds.  Add onion and fry until softened.  Add garlic, chilli and ginger.  Fry for a couple more minutes.  Add the tomato puree, tomatoes, lemon juice, turmeric, spice mix, chilli, salt, potato and chickpeas.  Leave to simmer on a low heat, stirring occasionally, til potatoes are soft.

When your chana are ready, deep fry your discs at 170 degrees centigrade, until golden brown.  Remove and place on kitchen paper to soak up excess grease.  Sprinkle on some of the spice.

To serve, put a disc on each plate, spoon on some chana, stick on an extra disc, and repeat, until you have a triple (or , if you are confident in your balancing skills, or hungry, quadruple) -decker chana sandwich.  Garnish with coriander


Eat with some rice and soy yoghurt.  Or whatever you want.

Outcome: pretty tasty.  Chana a little dry as it turned out I'd no tomato puree, which would have helped stick everything together.  I also used brown chick peas which are a little harder and drier than white ones, which didn't help matters.  The discs were fab!