What is Khaman Dholka?
Khaman Dhokla is one of the specialty treats from the state of Gujarat. It is typically served at breakfast but goes pretty well as a snack too. Traditionally, you will use rice and split chickpea to prepare the batter and then fermented the batter overnight. Khaman Dhokla, on the other hand, is the instant version where you will use chickpea flour to prepare the batter. It’s then fermented instantly using either Eno salt or a combination of baking soda and citric acid.
How is Khaman Dhokla Prepared?
This Gujarati special Khaman dhokla is sometime also referred to as just Khaman. The batter comes together very quickly and then it’s steamed until cooked through. Once the dhokla is cooked, it’s then garnished with a tempering of mustard seeds, curry leaves and green chilis along with mildly sweet sugar syrup. The taste of the cake is savory with a mild sweetness from the sugar syrup, which also keeps the dhokla moist.
Key Notes to Remember when you prepare Khaman Dhokla?
The key thing to remember while making khaman dhokla is that you add eno salt right at the end just before you steam the batter. You keep everything ready including your container for steaming. Once the batter is ready, you have to instantly put it for steaming. Don’t allow the batter to rest longer, or else the dhokla will turn out dense instead of spongy.
Growing up in a Bengali family, fish and poultry is the preferred choice of protein. And chickpeas mostly takes the back seat. Except for stew or using chickpea flour for deep-frying batter, I don’t remember seeing Mom using it a lot. Hence, it took me a while to adapt to the taste of chickpea. Arvind, on the other hand, loves the flavor of chickpea! So, after our marriage, I started trying my hands with a few chickpea dishes.
One of his absolute favorite snacks is Khaman Dhokla (steamed chickpea cake). Making dhokla at home sounds super easy but like most easy recipes, this too has it’s own tricky part. No dhokla is good unless it’s got that spongy moist texture. And getting that texture right was the tough part. at least for me! It took four flop attempts in 7 days (yeah, I went a little stubborn there) to finally get the correct texture of khaman dhokla. I did this post in collaboration with Kitchen Aid India. I used the stand mixer to make the batter and it was super quick plus effortless too.
Here is another Chickpea recipe that you might like :
Besan Ki Sabzi (Chickpea Cake Stir Fry)
