Black-eyed bean cake

This savory cake can be eaten as a breakfast item, as an evening snack along with your tea or coffee, as a starter before your main course or as an accompaniment with your main course. Even for those who are diet conscious you can incorporate it in your main course along with a soup and salad so your carbohydrate intake can be reduced and at the same time you get a good satisfaction from your food intake.

Ingredients:
150 gm of black eyed beans.

1-2 cloves of garlic , 1 green chilly and 1 small piece of ginger.

1 sachet of Eno fruit salt

1 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp cumin (jeera)
1 tsp sugar (optional)
1 tbsp of sesame seeds.
Any cooking oil for greasing an 8 inch cake pan.
Salt as per taste.


This is optional:

Fresh methi (Fenugreek leaves)

Wash well and chop the leaves very finely.

Saute on high flame till the leaves loose its shape and settle down (like wilt). This takes a minute or two and the leaves give out some water as you can see here. Switch off the gas and keep this aside as this will be used later in the recipe. This is an optional step so you can skip this ingredient completely if you want.

Method:
Preheat oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees celsius before you bake the black eyed bean cake. Alternatively you can also steam this cake if you do not have an oven for about 20 minutes. Boil the water first before you keep the cake for steaming.

Wash well and soak the black eyed beans for 2 hours.

Grind the ginger, garlic and green chilly first in the grinder using very little water so to make a paste.

Once you have the above paste, add the black eyed beans into the same grinder and start the grinder.

Adding minimum amount of water or only that much water needed to start and facilitate the grinding process.

Once you have got a thick and coarse batter (you don't have to make it a smooth puree, let it be a bit coarse or granular), take out in a bowl.

Now add all the spices:

Add salt:

Red chilly powder:

Turmeric powder:

Coriander powder:

Cumin (jeera)

Sesame seeds

Now you can add about 3 heaped tbsp of the methi leaves (fenugreek leaves) that you've sauteed and kept aside earlier. You can replace the methi with same amount of grated carrots or bottle gourd (lauki) or add 1tbsp of each or skip this step completely and proceed from below.

Mix well.

Add sugar (again this is optional) but I prefer this little amount of sugar as it enhances the taste further according to me.

Add the Eno fruit salt now and mix well. The batter will have bubbles since Eno fruit salt causes effervescence.

Grease an 8 inch cake pan with little bit of cooking oil and spread the oil evenly on the base and the sides of the pan with your fingers.

Pour the batter into the pan.

Bake for about 30-35 minutes.

Check to see if the cake is ready. To see if its done or not insert a toothpick in the center, if its comes out clean then the cake is cooked.

Also the top layer should be firm and sides when pressed/forced towards yourself should be able to come out and not stick to the side of the pan. Make sure its not too hot for your hands when you check it this way!!!

Cool the cake completely and using the blunt side of the knife cut into squares and then use a flat spatula to take out the squares as shown below:

Serve warm with coriander chutney or tomato ketchup.

NUTRITIP:
This food is very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Protein, Thiamin, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Folate and Manganese.