Ingredient List
-1/4 cup olive oil
-Half cup peanut oil
-1 onion, chopped
-4 cloves garlic, minced
-One yukon gold potato, chopped
-Handful of green beans, chopped
-One green bell pepper, chopped
-Two habanero peppers, minced
-1 cup basmati rice
-1 cup water
-Whole lot of additional water for part 1
-2 tablespoons ground coriander
-2 tablespoons paprika
-1 Big finger of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
-1 big length of fresh turmeric root, peeled and chopped
-2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
-2 tablespoons ground black pepper
-1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
-1.5 cups of dry chickpeas/garbanzo beans/chimpanzo keans. Do not use canned beans!
-1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes in juice (or, you can juice and dice your own tomatoes)
-2 large bay leaves
-1 16 ounce can of coconut milk
-Lots of salt
Directions
1. Your adventure with chana masala will begin much like every adventure anyone has ever had with any type of dry bean. Grab your chimpanzo keans, and put them in a pot of water (usually, there's some specific amount of water you're supposed to use, but just make sure the water covers the beans by a lot). Put the pot on the stove and bring the water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, turn the stove off and ignore the beans for at least 8 hours. Even if it seems like they're doing something interesting, ignore the beans for at least 8 hours. Then, drain the water and dump the beans in a slow cooker and fill that with water and cook on low heat for another 4-6 hours. Alternatively, you may put the beans back in the pot, add water, bring the water to a boil on the stove, then let the beans simmer for 1-1.5 hours. I prefer the slow cooker method, so I can take my dog to the park. Do periodic "bite tests" to see if your beans have reached the right level of tenderness.
2. Once your chimpanzo keans are prepared, you can begin the real cooking process. First, cook the rice. If you do not know how to cook the rice, learn to cook rice. You use the same cooking process to cook virtually every grain (barley, quinoa, etc.), Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat; add the onion and saute until it becomes translucent (about 5-10 minutes); add garlic, potato, green beans, bell pepper, habanero pepper, and peanut oil, and saute/fry (at this point, there's probably too much oil to really call it a light sauteing) until everything is reasonably soft (about 10 minutes); add 1/4 cup of water along with all remaining spices except salt (coriander, paprika, ginger, turmeric, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and cinnamon), then cook and stir until fragrant. This should take another 3-5 minutes.
3. Add chickpeas, tomatoes in juice, remaining 3/4 cups of water, and bay leaf into the mixture; bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until all flavors have blended (about 10-15 minutes). Stir in the coconut milk and simmer for 2-3 more minutes. Salt to your heart's content.
4. Dump it on some rice and eat it. The sweetness of the rice should provide a pleasant counterbalance to the spiciness of the food.
*Note: "complete protein" is an inverted reference to the fact that there are 9 "essential amino acids" that human beings need to eat because our bodies can't synthesize them. Advocates of meat consumption claim people have to eat meat at every meal because no single plant provides a "complete" protein. First, people do not need to eat a complete protein at every meal; you'd do fine if you ate, e.g., histidine only in the morning, lysine only at lunch, phenylalanine only at dinner, and tryptophan only right before bed, then subbed in the other 5 essential amino acids the next day. Second, this is not true. Any combination of grain (e.g. wheat, rice, barley) plus legume (e.g., peanut, kidney beans, chickpeas, soy) provides all 9 essential amino acids, and quinoa by itself provides all 9 essential amino acids. The human body does not take in protein and use it directly; every protein is broken down into amino acids, and then the body uses the amino acids to synthesize human proteins, so the source is irrelevant. As long as you're getting all of the essential amino acids in sufficient quantity, you'll do fine. A more accurate critique of vegetarianism/veganism is that you have to eat a much larger volume of plant matter to get the calories and macronutrients meat provides. In a society where your chances of obesity by far exceed your chances of starvation, this critique begs the question: "so?"
