For the uninitiated, Ragda is a preparation made from yellow peas and used in chaat items like Pani Puri, Ragda Puri, Ragda Pattice, Dahi Ragda Puri or Ragda Chaat.
While making Pani Puri, I prefer to make ragda instead of boiled sprouted moong and potatoes. Just a personal liking. The process of making ragda is simple but takes a little long time.
In Mumbai, ragda is used instead of chole with the aloo tikki/pattice – making it Ragda Pattice. Its a famous dish and one of my favorite chaat. It is also used in Pani Puri instead of boiled chana, moong and potatoes.
By the way, this ragda recipe is again my mom’s recipe.
So, here is the recipe for making ragda at home.
- 1½ cup yellow peas (white vatana)
- 3 cups water
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp red chili powder (use more if you want the ragda to be more spicy)
- a pinch of hing (optional)
- salt
Method to make the ragda:
- Start the night before. Pick and wash the yellow peas.
- Soak the peas overnight in water.
- The next day, you will see beautiful smooth rounded creamish yellow colored peas almost doubled in size. Drain the water. Rinse the yellow peas in fresh clean water.
- In a pressure cooker, add the soaked yellow peas with the turmeric powder, hing, salt.
- Add water and mix well.
- Pressure cook for 10 minutes.
- When the pressure becomes low in the cooker, open the lid and check to see if the peas are cooked.
- These peas take a long time to cook. In case, they are not cooked completely, pressure cook again for 5-7 minutes. I had to pressure cook again as the pic below shows the consistency of the ragda when I pressure cooked it again. If you compare it with the above pic, you will see that the ragda is more thick in the below picture than in the above one.
- Generally, it happens that some peas gets cooked, whereas a few remain partially cooked. If this is the case you will have to cook it for some more minutes.
- Once the peas have become soft and mushy, check for the consistency of the ragda.
- If it is slightly watery, then evaporate the water by cooking the ragda in the pressure cooker without the lid.
- The ragda should not be very thick nor watery. Just slightly thick.
- Check the seasoning and adjust accordingly. Add the red chili powder to the hot ragda and mix well.
- Now this ragda can be used as the masala (filling) for Pani Puri.
- It can also be used to make Ragda Pattice or a simple Ragda Chaat.
- Consume it fresh. Enjoy:-)
