Chana Sundal

Where does sundal come from?

Sundal is a Tamil category more than a single dish: any boiled legume, tempered and tossed with coconut, can carry the name. During Navratri in Tamil Nadu, households make a different sundal on each of the nine days and offer it at the golu, the display of dolls. Guests take a little packet home. Away from the festival, it is the famous snack sold in paper cones on Marina Beach in Chennai, often with sliced raw mango on top. It is also eaten at home at teatime or as a side dish to rasam and rice.

White chickpeas (vellai kondakadalai) and black chickpeas (karuppu kondakadalai) are both traditional. Black ones have a firmer skin and an earthier taste, and many families prefer them for the festival. White ones cook faster and are milder. Both use exactly the same seasoning.

The technique that matters: cook them through, then dry them

Undercooked chickpeas are the commonest failing, and they are unpleasant to eat as well as hard to digest. Overnight soaking is not optional here. Skip it and you need far longer under pressure, with split skins and a mushy outside to show for it. Salt in the cooking water seasons them through, and it does not toughen them to any noticeable degree in a pressure cooker.

The second step is drainage. A sundal should be dry enough to eat with your fingers, so drain it for longer than seems necessary. Keep the tempering short and hot. The coconut goes in only at the end, off the flame, because cooking it dulls its sweetness and shortens how long the dish keeps.

What goes wrong, and how do you rescue it?

If the chickpeas are still hard after cooking, the batch may be old, and old legumes can take much longer to soften. Return them to the cooker with a little water for a few more whistles. If they turn to mush, the dish is no longer a sundal, but it makes a very good base: mash lightly with the tempering and serve as a coarse spread, or stir it into a sambar. If it tastes flat, it needs salt, a squeeze of lemon or more curry leaves. If it is watery, return it to the kadhai and toss it over a medium-high flame for a few minutes until the moisture has evaporated.

Substitutions and other versions

Fresh coconut is worth seeking out, but frozen grated coconut, thawed, works very well. Avoid desiccated coconut unless it has been soaked in a little warm water first. Any cooked legume can replace the chickpeas, including green moong, black-eyed beans, rajma, chana dal or dried peas, though you will need to reduce the cooking time for smaller ones. If you have a tin of chickpeas, rinse it, drain it and warm it through in the tempering; this is a shortcut that gives a softer, less nutty result. For a lighter snack, reduce the coconut to 2 tablespoons and add finely chopped cucumber or carrot at the end. Asafoetida often contains wheat flour, so choose a packet labelled gluten-free if that matters to you.

What goes with chana sundal?

It needs nothing to be a complete small snack, and a cup of filter coffee in the late afternoon is the natural partner. As a side, it sits well with curd rice or lemon rice, both of which benefit from the extra protein. It also packs well for work, with a wedge of lemon on the side. The plant-based nutrition course looks further at how legumes fit into a vegetarian or vegan day.

Storing and reheating

Fresh coconut spoils quickly, particularly in warm weather, and this is what limits the dish. Do not leave sundal at room temperature for more than about 2 hours. Refrigerate it in a closed box for up to 2 days, then warm it briefly in a pan with a sprinkle of water, or bring it back to room temperature. If you want to cook ahead, boil and drain the chickpeas and keep those in the fridge, then temper and add coconut on the day you eat them. Cooked, drained chickpeas also freeze well for about 2 months.