Rovaco Dance Firm Founder Rohan Bhargava Shares His Savory Indian Breakfast Recipe

Rohan Bhargava sees cooking as a type of love. “It’s one thing I acquired from my fiancé as a result of his love language is cooking for another person,” says the founder and creative director of the New York Metropolis–based mostly Rovaco Dance Firm. Bhargava’s fiancé, Shivam, will get the credit score for reintroducing him to a childhood favourite: besan ka cheela, savory gram (chickpea) flour pancakes. “It’s a breakfast dish I grew up consuming quite a bit again residence in New Delhi, India,” says Bhargava of cheelas, which additionally occur to be vegan and gluten-free. “I all the time thought it will require a lot effort, but it surely’s one thing that’s actually quick and simple to arrange.” Though cheelas are normally paired with inexperienced chutney, Bhargava additionally enjoys consuming them with ketchup. “It’s an unpopular opinion that lots of people look down on,” he jokes.

In Indian tradition, cooking is deeply tied to hospitality, a practice Bhargava works to share with Rovaco’s audiences. “For the longest time I had a worry of proudly claiming my id, and a variety of it needed to do with rising up in postcolonial India, the place it was ingrained in folks’s brains that Western tradition is superior,” he says. “Now I’m attempting to unlearn these tendencies and spotlight points of my tradition and id in my work.”

For the previous few years, he’s placed on the Rovaco Dance Get together, the place company are immersed in a five-sensory expertise that features Indian foods and drinks. Whereas Bhargava emcees the occasion, dancer Ashmita Biswas takes on the cooking and annually finds a brand new solution to put her personal twist on Indian street-food delicacies, drawing on influences from her native Kolkata and her Bengali upbringing. “We really feel that tradition is finest understood when it’s skilled firsthand, versus simply watching it from afar,” says Bhargava. “We allow them to expertise the fantastic thing about it.”

Bhangra Bops

Bhargava likes to hearken to upbeat music whereas he’s cooking. He has additionally just lately began studying bhangra, a conventional Punjabi dance type, and has discovered himself drawn to Punjabi music, particularly songs by Diljit Dosanjh, Garry Sandhu, and Jasmine Sandlas.

This recipe yields 8–10 pancakes.

Substances

• 1/2 small purple onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 small plum tomato, finely chopped
• 2 cups besan flour (The Hindi phrase “besan” interprets to gram or chickpea flour. Yow will discover besan at Indian or specialty grocery shops, or on websites like Amazon.)
• 2 tsps purple chili powder (Pink chili powder, versus chili powder, tends to be hotter and is customary in Indian cooking. If you happen to can’t discover it, Bhargava suggests substituting with 2 tsps of finely chopped recent inexperienced chilies.)
• 2 tsps salt
• 1 tbsp crushed kasoori methi/dried fenugreek leaves (“These are available in a field that lasts perpetually,” says Bhargava. If you happen to can’t discover them, you’ll be able to substitute 1 tbsp of finely chopped recent cilantro.)
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups water (Bhargava says that the precise quantity will depend on your required consistency.)
• vegetable oil or cooking spray for the pan
• chutney, sizzling sauce, or ketchup

Directions

1. Chop half a small purple onion and half a small plum tomato, and set them apart.
2. Mix besan fl our, purple chili powder (or inexperienced chilies), salt, and fenugreek leaves (or cilantro) in a big bowl.
3. Add water, beginning with 1 1/2 cups and including extra in the event you choose a thinner consistency, and whisk vigorously till the batter is clean and frothy, with no lumps.
4. Combine within the chopped onions and tomatoes and stir to mix.
5. Place a skillet over a medium flame, and grease it properly with oil or cooking spray. When the pan is sizzling, add a ladleful batter to the middle. Utilizing the again of the ladle, unfold the batter till it thinly coats the pan.
6. As soon as the batter solidifies and the perimeters raise from the pan, normally after 90 seconds to 2 minutes, use a spatula to flip the pancake. Prepare dinner the opposite facet for roughly 90 seconds, often urgent down with the spatula in order that your entire cheela cooks evenly.
7. Take away the cheela from the pan, and luxuriate in it sizzling. (They’ll get dry as soon as chilly, provides Bhargava.) Serve with a condiment comparable to chutney, sizzling sauce, or ketchup.