Photo credit: https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/cheela-recipe/
Chila is an Indian savoury pancake made of gramflour. It is a perfect breakfast dish which is light on the stomach yet it is filling. Our chila recipe is tweaked slightly to include bottle gourd or ghiya as an added ingredient. It adds a very nice flavour as well as makes it softer to chew. You may choose to further change the recipe by adding capsicum or onions. You may also, instead of using gramflour, use millet flour or oats flour. So without wasting time, get ready to make these healthy and boring sounding ingredients into a daily go-to breakfast dish or an evening snack with Masala Chai.
Ghiya Chila – Glutenfree savoury pancakes
Chila is an Indian savoury pancake made of gramflour.
Equipment
- 1 pan
- 1 Spatula
- 1 grater
- 1 peeler
- 1 ladle
- 1 steel bowl with a flat base
Ingredients
- 1 piece onion finely chopped
- 1 piece green chilly finely chopped
- 1 piece tomato finely chopped
- 1 cup bottle gourd (ghiya / louki) finely chopped
- 1/2 inch ginger piece finely chopped
- 1 cup water
- 2 tbsp desi ghee
- 30 gram fresh coriander
- 1 cup gramflour (besan)
- salt as needed
- 1/8 tea spoon turmeric
- 1/2 tea spoon ajwain
Instructions
Prep work
- Rinse all vegetables
- Peel the bottle gourd.
- Grate the bottle gourd and ginger.
- Finely chop the remaining vegetables including green chilly.
Make batter
- Add besan, salt as per taste, ajwain, turmeric, the chopped onions, tomato, green chilly and half of the coriander leaves. Add the grated ginger and bottle gourd. Now add 3/4 cup water. Mix all of tehse gently while making sure that the batter is thick but can be poured easily. Adjust quantity of water if needed.
Cook the Chila
- Heat the pan. Introduce a few drops of ghee and baste the base of the pan with it. When the oil is hot enough, (just to the point when slight fumes appear), add a ladle of the batter right at the center. Using the steel bowl, start from the center and applying a little pressure spread the batter evenly across the base of the pan by moving the bowl clockwise and outwards. Make sure it is a thin layer of batter. Adjust quantity of batter if needed.
- Drizzle a few drops of ghee to the sides of the batter and a little on the top. Adjust flame to medium.
- Within a few minutes of cooking, you will see the edges turning golden with crisp and leaving the pan. Flip the chila and apply light pressure with the spatula.
- The chila is ready to serve when both sides have multiple spots of lovely golden crisp.
- Best served hot with coriander chutney or tomato ketchup or garlic chutney.
Notes
Photo credits: https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/cheela-recipe/