Rajma Masala

An authentic North Indian meal and a delight for everyone..

Whenever I make this in my home the bowls are just licked clean hmmm…😋.
There could be different ways of cooking rajma, and here I’am sharing the way its flavoured in my kitchen.

I mostly prefer kashmiri rajma beans. These beans are smaller in size than the normal red kidney beans and also they cook little faster than the others but the others are also equally delicious with many health benefits.

The planing for making it usually starts a day in advance coz they need to be soaked in water overnight. Nowadays we get canned red kidney beans too which you just open and are ready to use these are also the best. But, this is how I grew up seeing these beans being cooked .

Basically Rajma Masala is a beans curry which you can have it with Bread – Baguette(goes best with it) , normal bread, chapatis, plain paratha’s but, rajma without chawal feels incomplete and, rajma with jeera(cumin seeds) rice oh its a WOW combination…

I have cooked this curry all in one pot – my pressure cooker. Again you can either pressure cook it first and then cook it again alongwith the tadka or give tadka in the pressure cooker and then add rajma and allow it to pressure cook. In this – first I kept it on high heat and allowed the pressure to build up then, lower the heat and keep cooking it for half an hour, increase the heat then and allow 3-4 whistles to blow. By this way rajma gets infused with the spices while its cooking.

Coriander seeds – while roasting them
Prepping the spices before cooking

Speaking of spices coriander powder adds a lovely flavour to this curry and I usually prefer preparing coriander powder at home. Just roast them for a minute and let it cool down in the same pan after removing from heat but keep stirring it occasionally. Grind it to powder and store it. For all remaining spices check out my recipe below.

All said, here’s my recipe of Rajma..

A squeeze of honey instead of sugar
Rajma ready
Recipe
 
Ingredients Used?
 
1 cup Rajma (soaked overnight or atleast 4-5 hours)
3/4 cup pureed tomato
1and 1/2 inch ginger chopped
4 green cardamoms
2 cloves
1/2 inch cinnamom stick
1 pinch carrom seeds
1 pinch shahi jeera
1 tsp jeera
1 – 1n1/2 tbsp coriander powder
Coriander leaves’ with stem
Honey (just 1 squeeze)
Hing 1/2 tsp
1 tbsp oil + 1 tsp ghee
Salt as per taste
Red Chilly powder as per taste
Water 4-5 cups (as required)
 
How I Prepared It?
 
In a pressure cooker heat oil and ghee. Add jeera, shahi jeera, ginger, cardamom, cloves, cinnamom sticks and hing. Saute till ginger is golden in colour. Add carrom seeds and mix in the pureed tomato. Add a pinch of salt and keep stirring till oil starts separating from tomato. At this stage add a squeeze of honey, coriander powder, salt and coriander stems- chopped. Stir this and mix in the soaked rajma. Add water (depending on the gravy you desire) and pressure cook it.
 
Once its done let it cool release any pressure present in the cooker, open, garnish with coriander and serve.
 
 

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