I’m always on the hunt for great Indian recipes. I love Indian food and have dreams of recreating dishes that I enjoy at my usual Indian spots. Sometimes I get things right but oftentimes the results fall short. I’m guessing because I’m too lazy to grind my own spices and such or maybe my spices are just old.
Curried chickpeas are high on my list of dishes that I would like to successfully recreate. I’ve come close with some recipes but never can quite hit the nail on the head. Sometimes the curries are too dry, sometimes they are too tomatoey, and sometimes they aren’t spicy enough. Le sigh. A few months back I came across this recipe from the Toronto Star and filed it away for a rainy day.
There isn’t much to say about this recipe other than that it did not turn out well! For one thing, my results look TOTALLY different from the picture accompanying the article. I’m good at following directions so I’m a bit suspicious. The only way to describe this dish is sour. I don’t know if my canned tomatoes were wonky or what, but this tasted foul. I kind of nibbled around it for dinner and then brought the leftovers for lunch and couldn’t quite do it. This was a straight to the trash kind of dish.
I’m not quite sure where things went wrong but they definitely did go wrong.
Dave Carroll’s Spicy Channa
1/4 cup (60 mL) vegetable oil
3 tbsp (45 mL) cumin seeds
2 tbsp (30 mL) minced garlic (about 6 large cloves)
1-1/2 tbsp (22 mL) each: garam masala, ground cumin
1 tsp (5 mL) salt
Pinch pure chili powder
2 yellow onions, diced
28-oz (796-mL) can diced tomatoes (don’t drain)
Two 19-oz (540-mL) cans chickpeas, drained, rinsed
Steamed rice (optional), for serving
Heat oil in large saucepan over medium high. Add cumin seeds and garlic. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add garam masala, ground cumin, salt and chili powder to the saucepan. Cook, stirring for about a minute. Add onions; cover. Cook, stirring every minute, 3 minutes to soften. Add tomatoes with juices. Reduce heat to medium. Cover. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chickpeas and reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer 20 minutes.
Serve over rice, if desired.
Makes 6 servings.
(Via The Toronto Star)
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I hate when that happens!
I noticed there’s a lot of cumin in there! Maybe that was part of the problem? The chickpea curries I’ve had tend to be both sweet and sour. I noticed there wasn’t any sugar or sweetener.
Good tip! I probably need to find a way to balance the flavours better.
Hi there, I’ve been trying to make the perfect channah for a long time. For some reason, for something that seems so easy, its a very hard recipe to get right. I think I’ve tried 5 or six recipes. Even my mother in law, who is an awesome cook, hasn’t gotten it perfect. I wonder what it is about channah that makes it so difficult?!
Have a lovely weekend.
*kisses* HH
My thoughts exactly! It seems like it should be so simple! I make other curries well but I still struggle with the channa.
I can’t figure out why you would create a blog post around a dish that went into the trash….and then post it to foodgawker….
Hi Susan!
Thanks for stopping by.
Foodgawker is about photography, not about the best recipes, the best restaurant meal etc. It’s all about visual appeal. According to their site: Our editors…choose the highest quality, most appealing images to showcase.
The photo was also accepted by TasteSpotting and I know that TasteSpotting actually reviews the supporting editorial copy prior to posting.
Hope this clears things up.
Ooo this looks delicious and I love the ingredients! Loving your blog and looking forward to future posts!
http://www.cookskinny.blogspot.com/