Bharela Marcha nu Shaak
Bharela Marcha Nu Shaak – Stuffed Peppers with toasted ground peanuts, chickpea flour, sesame seeds and dry spices make this delicious dish.
I chop up bell peppers because the ones we find here in US, are huge. So, it’s easier to serve when they are chopped in cubes.
Serve them with fresh phulka rotis, dal and rice as a full meal or just make it with chapati with side of yogurt. This can be a side dish to gravy based shaak too.
My mom makes this traditional Bharela Marcha nu Shaak which means Stuffed Peppers. There are so many variations available in this recipe. My mom always stuffed green bell peppers with this delicious filling of peanuts and chickpea flour.
Lot of recipes will call for small mild peppers, but I mentioned mom used small bell peppers, in India we get these little bell peppers something we call capsicum. Every other Gujarati household will have a variation of this dish. Some add coconut, while we don’t. Some might make it with other vegetables too. The recipes can be different, but there are some ingredients that are common like roasted chickpea flour (it removes the raw flavor), roasted ground peanuts, and dry spices.
Tips/ Suggestions
I love adding a lot of ground peanuts. They add such a nice texture. Two other ingredients, that I personally like to add a little extra is garlic and coriander-cumin powder.
In addition to the recipe being is vegan and gluten free? Perfect for people with diet restrictions. Asafoetida is not gluten free, so avoid that.
You can swap bell peppers to small sweet colorful peppers. I would suggest keep them whole, just put a slit with the stem and stuff them and cook them that way.
Another variation, is you can add more water and keep it slightly saucy. But we love the drier version as its nicely toasted. If you want more of chickpea flour and peanut compared to peppers, then use less peppers or increase the quantity of chickpea flour by a tbsp or more.
Make it into full meal with GUJARATI DAL, some steamed rice and rotis.
Bharela Marcha – Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
- 2 medium bell peppers any color
- ¼ cup chickpea flour
- ½ – ¾ cup roasted ground peanuts
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds
- 4 tbsp neutral oil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/8 tsp asafoetida
- 3 cloves garlic grated
- 2 tsp coriander-cumin powder
- 1 tsp red chili powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- ½ tsp garam masala
- Salt to taste
- 1 tsp sugar optional
- 2 tbsp cilantro chopped
Instructions
- Or chop them up in big chunks/cubes.
- Make the filling
- In a bowl, add roasted chickpea flour, sesame seeds, dry spices and salt. Give it a stir.
- Heat a pan on medium heat, add oil once its hot add cumin seeds. Let them splutter and add asafeotida. Followed by garlic, once garlic cooks for just few seconds and the rawness is gone, add bell peppers. Cook the bell peppers until they are cooked
- but still has a little crunch to them.
- Add the chickpea flour mix. And give it a good stir. Let it cook for few minutes about 2-3 minutes. Keep stirring as chickpea flour is very delicate, burns quickly.
- Add ¼ cup water and mix well. Let it cook down and become dry if that’s the consistency you are looking for. You can cover the pan and on slow heat let it cook.
- Once it looks nicely done, add ground peanuts. Mix well.
- Add cilantro and turn off the heat. Serve with fresh rotis.
- If you are using whole sweet peppers, then wash them and dry them. Make a slit/cut lengthwise keeping the pepper intact. Stuff them with the filling, along with ground peanuts and you can add leftover filling while cooking.
- Follow first steps and let the peppers cook, until they have some browning. Then add extra filling, water and let it cook until its dry and done.