Besan Chilla | Vegan And Gluten-Free Pancake

Besan is the Hindi word for ‘gram flour,’ and chilla is a pancake. Chillas are basically Indian pancakes and can be either sweet or savoury made with various kinds of flour. Hence, as the name suggests, it is a pancake made of gram flour (chickpea flour)but is savoury. These are very easy to make, are healthy, and they taste great. You can also customize it with very few veggies like onions, tomatoes, green chilies (pepper), grated carrot, chopped spinach, chopped coriander(parsley), etc. Here, we would go ahead with the basic besan chilla that requires some chopped onions, tomatoes, green chilies, and fresh coriander(parsley) leaves.

It can be served on its own with a cup of tea or with some chutney. Here, we would prepare some fresh mint chutney. The complete serving is vegan and gluten-free.

Prep. Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 5 minutes
Serves: 2

Ingredients (for besan chilla):

Besan or gram flour (coarse): 1 cup
Onion: 2 medium size (finely chopped)
Green Chillies/Green Peppers: 2 (finely chopped)
Tomato: 1 (finely chopped)
Ajwain/Carom Seeds (optional): 1 tbs
Fresh coriander leaves (parsley): 1/4^th cup (chopped)
Salt: 1 teaspoon
Cooking Oil/Ghee (Clarified Indian Butter)/Butter: 4 tbs
Water: 1/2 cup

Ingredients (for mint-chutney):

Fresh mint leaves: 1 cup
Fresh coriander(parsley) leaves: 1 cup
Onion: 1 medium size (chopped)
Green Chillies/Green Peppers: 2 (roughly chopped)
Tomato: 1 (finely chopped)
Fresh Ginger (washed and peeled): 1 inch (roughly chopped)
Dry roasted peanuts/skinless urad daal: ½ cup
Lemon juice: 2 tbs
Salt: 1/ teaspoon
Mustard seeds: 1tbs
Cooking oil: 2 tbs

Let’s Prepare (mint chutney):

Add the mint leaves, coriander leaves, onion, green chilies, tomato, fresh ginger, dry roasted peanuts/skinless urad daal, salt, and lemon juice to a mixer/grinder jar and run it for 2-3 minutes. Open it and mix the contents with a spoon. Close the lid and grind it again for 1 minute. It will result in a fine green paste.
Empty the green paste into a bowl.
Take a small tadka-pan/small fry-pan and add the cooking oil to it.
When the oil is heated, add the mustard seeds to it. Be careful as the mustard seeds will begin to splatter.
Pour the oil and mustard seeds over the green paste in the bowl and mix well.
It is ready.

Let’s Cook (besan chilla):

Add the besan/gram flour, coriander leaves, onion, green chilies, tomato, Ajwain/Carom seeds, salt, and cooking oil into a mixing bowl.
Pour the water slowly while mixing the contents to form a batter.
Place a non-stick pan over medium heat and allow it to get hot.
Use a ladle to pour a ladle-full of batter onto the pan and evenly spread it like a pancake by moving the ladle in circles.
Allow cooking on one side for 2 minutes.
Use a spatula to carefully flip the pancake and cook it on the other side for another 2 minutes.
Remove the pancake on a plate and serve it hot with the mint chutney by the side.
It’s ready !!