Hole Salad with Ghughniya – Roasted Green Chickpeas & Wheat Salad

Hole Salad with Ghughniya or Roasted Green Chickpeas & Wheat Salad is typical Baishakhi food of Punjab in a bowl. Boiled whole wheat grains, Roasted cholia (or dehydrated green chickpeas) with a Mustard oil and jaggery dressing. It is comforting, healthy and delicious.

This Hole Salad is inspired by many of my Baishakhi memories. Some my own and some inspired by the ones I have heard mom telling me. Hole or Hola is roasted cholia or fresh garbanzo beans. Ghughniya is a boiled wheat grain served with a touch of shakkar or powdered jaggery. Both of these important dishes representing the harvest of Punjab. The last batch of green channa and the fresh harvest of wheat, eaten as a respect to our agrarian culture.

Fusion recipes, what are they really?

These customs and traditions from olden times are so comforting and yet dying a slow death. I often think what is a way to keep these alive, that whether my son would really like to eat Hola and ghugniyan if I feed him? And the more I think, the more I feel the solution is to adapt these ingredients to our modern day eating. Though I am not too fond of using the word “Fusion” for cuisine but honestly the way we eat has changed over the years. The way we cook has changed over the years.

From being large joint families to small nuclear units where almost all members of the family work. To our taste buds being adapted to newer flavours, to our eating style changing to accommodate the sedentary lifestyle we live. Things aren’t the same as they used to be for our grandmothers or even our mothers for that matter. And our eating has to reflect the same. In what we eat and how we eat.

In my everyday cooking at home and in the recipes I create, I try and keep this in mind. And then I go back to the food and flavours that were being eaten years ago and bring them back. If you want to call it Fusion, so be it. But in my mind, it is just keeping the traditions alive and if this is what it takes to do so, why not?

Hole Salad for Phulkari Dreams

I designed the menu for Phulkari Dreams, my first popup in years, with exactly this in mind. Punjabi food is so often misrepresented and after having struggled with it for years, I thought I will change people’s perception of it. That is what I had in mind when I designed the menu for Phulkari Dreams and was so happy that people appreciated it.

Here is the menu if you want to have a look.

And this salad was one of my favorite things on the menu that day. I served it topped with some Radish Microgreens from Living Food Co (which I tripping on currently if you are in Bangalore do check them out). I feel it came together rather well, I made it again yesterday to take a picture and post it on the blog. After all, it is perfect for the current Summer Series and works beautifully for H.

Leaving the recipe here, it is super simple and very comforting along with being nutritious and a complete meal. Do try it out!

If you make this,  share a picture with me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook? I would love to hear what you have to say about it.

Hole Salad with Ghughniya - Roasted Green Chickpeas & Wheat Salad

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Course Appetizer, Salad

Cuisine Indian, punjabi

Ingredients

  

• 1 cup green chickpeas if using dehydrated soaked for 2 hours, if using fresh use 1.5 cups
• 1 cup whole wheat
• 1 cucumber chopped. I prefer to use kakdi, but any cukes work
• 1 potato boiled and cubed
• 1 onion chopped
• 1/2 raw mango finely chopped
• radish microgreens for topping, optional

For the dressing

• 3 tbsp mustar oil
• 1 tsp chaat masala
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• salt to taste
• 1.5 tbsp jaggery powder
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

 

• In a pressure cooker, boil green chickpeas till done. Usually takes about 2-3 whistles or 5 minutes on low flame
• In another pressure cooker (or the same after emptying it), boil whole wheat grains for 15 minutes till soft and cooked. Set aside for cooling.
• Once green channa and boiled wheat are cooled, mix with all the chopped vegetables.
• In a small pan, bring mustard oil to smoking point. Let it cool for 2 minutes. Mix all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and pour mustard oil over them. Mix till blended.
• Pour the dressing over salad and mix gently. Served topped with microgreens if using.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!