Ghugni

Bengali street-food curry of dried white peas simmered with ginger, cumin, and coriander, finished with raw onion, lime, and bhaja masala

Origin: Bengal, India

From the journey of Pea.

Ghugni is one of the great street foods of eastern India, the ubiquitous tea-stall snack of Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, and Jharkhand, sold from kerbside cauldrons across Kolkata and ladled into bowls or paper cones at all hours. At its heart is the dried white pea (the matar of the eastern kitchen), soaked overnight and simmered until tender in a fragrant, mildly spiced gravy, then dressed in its street form with a flurry of finishing touches: raw chopped onion, green chilli, a squeeze of lime, a scatter of chopped coriander, and a dusting of bhaja masala, the toasted and ground spice mix of cumin and dried red chilli that is the perfume of so much Bengali street food. Where the North Indian kitchen prizes the fresh green pea, the eastern kitchen built an entire beloved category of dishes on the humble dried pea. This is the founder-crop pea in its most ancient guise, the storable, keeping pulse that has fed the temperate Old World since the first Neolithic farmers, carried here into the everyday cooking of a hundred and fifty million people. Ghugni is endlessly versatile: eaten alone as a snack, spooned over puffed rice (jhalmuri or ghugni chaat), served with flatbread for breakfast, or topped with coconut slivers and tamarind in its Odia and Bihari variants. A non-vegetarian version (often made with mutton keema) exists, but the everyday ghugni is gloriously vegetarian, its richness coming entirely from the long simmer of the peas and the careful building of the spice base. It is the taste of the Kolkata pavement, of cricket matches and winter evenings and the corner tea shop.

Ingredients

Peas

  • 300 g dried white peas (safed matar), soaked overnight in plenty of cold water

Curry

  • 1 piece potato, cut into small cubes (optional)
  • 1 piece onion, finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp ginger, grated
  • 1 piece tomato, finely chopped
  • 3 tbsp mustard oil or neutral oil

Tempering

  • 1 piece bay leaf
  • 0.5 tsp cumin seeds

Spices

  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 0.5 tsp red chilli powder

Seasoning

  • 1 tsp salt, or to taste

Finishing

  • 1 tsp bhaja masala (dry-roasted and ground cumin and dried red chilli)
  • 1 piece small onion, finely chopped (to garnish)
  • 1 piece green chilli, finely chopped (to garnish)
  • 1 piece lime, cut into wedges
  • 2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped (to garnish)

Method

  1. Drain the soaked peas. Boil them in fresh salted water (with a cubed potato if using) for 35 to 45 minutes, until soft but still holding their shape. Drain, reserving the cooking water.
  2. Heat the oil in a heavy pan (heat mustard oil to smoking first, then cool slightly). Add the bay leaf and cumin seeds and let them crackle.
  3. Add the chopped onion and fry for 6 to 8 minutes until golden. Add the grated ginger and cook for a minute, then the chopped tomato, and cook until it breaks down.
  4. Add the turmeric, ground cumin, ground coriander, chilli powder, and salt with a splash of water to make a paste, and fry for 3 to 4 minutes until the oil separates and the spices smell cooked.
  5. Add the cooked peas and potato, and enough of the reserved cooking water to make a thick, just-soupy gravy. Simmer for 10 to 12 minutes, mashing a few peas against the side of the pan to thicken it.
  6. Ladle into bowls and finish each with chopped raw onion, green chilli, fresh coriander, a generous dusting of bhaja masala, and a squeeze of lime.

Notes

Dried yellow peas may be used in place of white. For ghugni chaat, spoon the ghugni over puffed rice or crushed papri and pile on tamarind chutney and sev. An Odia variant adds grated coconut, and a Bihari one is often thinner and spicier. A meaty version (mangsher ghugni) folds in cooked mutton keema.

The Gastrographer

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