Chana Masala for a Tuesday That Got Away From You
It is 6:40 and the plan, such as it was, has collapsed. There is no fresh anything. There are, however, two tins and a cupboard, and that turns out to be enough.
This is the dinner that costs about three dollars and tastes like you meant it.
Chana masala is the most forgiving thing in the weeknight canon. It wants cheap ingredients, it improves while you set the table, and the only step that matters is the one everybody rushes.
What you need
- 2 tbsp neutral oil or ghee
- 1 large onion, sliced thin
- 4 cloves garlic and a thumb of ginger, grated
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp garam masala, plus a pinch at the end
- 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
- 2 x 400g tins chickpeas, drained
- Salt, and a squeeze of lemon to finish
How to make it
- Heat the oil in a wide pan over a medium-high flame. Add the onion with a good pinch of salt and leave it alone for six or seven minutes, until the edges go properly brown. Stirring constantly is how you get pale onions and a sad curry.
- Add the garlic and ginger and cook for one minute, until it smells like something. Add the cumin, coriander and garam masala and stir for thirty seconds, no longer, or the spices turn bitter.
- Tip in the tomatoes and scrape the bottom of the pan. Simmer for five minutes, until the sauce darkens and pulls away from the sides.
- Add the chickpeas and half a tin of water. Simmer for ten minutes, pressing a few chickpeas against the side of the pan to thicken it.
- Taste, salt properly, finish with lemon and the last pinch of garam masala. Serve with rice, or with bread, or standing at the counter.
Notes
Keeps three to four days in the fridge and genuinely improves on day two, once the spices settle.
It freezes well, so make the double batch while the pan is already dirty. Label it, because a frozen curry looks like every other frozen curry.
If it tastes flat, it is almost always salt, not spice. Add salt before you add more garam masala.