Tag Archives: Indian

Gingered Chickpea and Chicken Curry

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IMG_6872Yum!  Homemade curry is a wonderful thing, fresh and fragrant.  Lately I’ve been able to convert my curry indifferent husband into a curry loving husband with dishes like this.  Such is the power of good home cooking.  Chocked full of ginger, this spicy dish will make your taste buds sing.  The recipe calls for 3 cups of cooked chickpeas which is approximately equal to 2 (15-ounce) cans, drained and rinsed or 1 cup of dried chickpeas.  You don’t need to pre-soak dried chickpeas either, they cook up fine without bothering.  Just put 1 cup of dried chickpeas into a saucepan, add lots of water and some salt.  Bring to a boil,  turn the heat down to low, cover and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours.  Easy, peasy.

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Madhur Jaffrey’s Garam Masala

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Garam masala is an amazing spice mix.  It is not meant to be cooked with but is stirred in to a curry at the end of cooking or used as a finishing garnish.  You can buy a commercially made garam masala if you don’t want to buy all of these whole spices.  However, if you happen to have these sitting around the spice cupboard you will be greatly rewarded by making your own.  There are so many different ways to make garam masala and every Indian cook has their own combination of these and other spices.  What I like about this one is it’s simplicity, not too many flavors competing for attention.   The most time consuming part of this is removing all the cardamom seeds from the pods.  They do open up easily if you lightly press on them with a meat mallet or the side of a chef’s knife.  And this is a great way to use up all of those nutmeg pieces that are just too small to grate on a microplane. Continue reading →