Chana Masala

Felt like comforting Indian food the other day. Also, I had just bought some new boxes of my favourite Indian spice mixes, this one for Chana Masala. The second ingredient is salt... no wonder I always liked these mixes! Chana Masala is pretty much the easiest thing to make, so I quickly got to work using this Canadian Living recipe as a guide.

First in the frying pan was two small chopped onions, 4 garlic cloves, and, after a few minutes, 2 Tbsp of the spice mix. Always good to toast your spices for a minute, stirring constantly so they don't burn, to get the most flavour. I then added 1 cup of water, 1/4 cup tomato paste, 1 tsp of brown sugar and one can of chickpeas.




Let that stew for 10-15 minutes so it gets nice and thick and tomato-ey. I made a rookie mistake, though - I wasn't totally sure how potent my spice mix was, and it turned out quite spicy! So I decided to tame it with some big spoonfuls of sour cream (yogurt would've also worked).

As you can guess, the sour cream made it rich and the spice mix made it salty and it was a delicious bowl of Indian deliciousness. I like living close to Little India, but I do buy those honey desserts too often...

Better Butter Tofu

Happy Boxing Day!

Now let me start this post by warning you that this recipe is trying to be a 'healthier' butter chicken (or in my case, tofu) - but I wouldn't tell anyone to make it if you were actually craving rich, restaurant-style butter chicken. Having said that, it's a tasty, easy Indian-flavoured dinner. The recipe comes courtesy of Greta and Janet Podleski of Looney Spoons and Eat, Shrink and Be Merry fame.

The ladies first call for marinating chicken thighs in PC Tandoori sauce and baking them. I instead fried up some tofu with some vindaloo curry paste I have in the fridge (those jars last a long time and do go on sale occasionally). Hey, Indian flavour is Indian flavour, right? I then added (real!) butter to the pan with some oil, 1 large onion and 3 garlic cloves. My spice mix was mostly the same as listed in the recipe, omitting turmeric (just don't have any) and replacing the fresh ginger with 2 tsp dried ginger.

I added in the diced tomatoes, 1 cup only of stock, and 1 tsp molasses instead of brown sugar. After simmering, I skipped the part where they blend half of the sauce - if I had an immersion blender, I would, because I'm sure it makes it much creamier, but I couldn't be bothered to dirty my blender. I also threw in some extra veggies - carrots and cauliflower - and put the tofu back in.

Some delicious ingredients go in next - sour cream, and a Tbsp of peanut butter. No cilantro this time, but if I had some I would add way more than 1 Tbsp! I just threw some green onions on top.

The result was more like a chunky, peanuty Indian stew, since I didn't eat it over rice - just inhaled a bowl of it. But I could see if you blended half of it and ate a more manageable portion over rice, it would be like butter chicken/tofu. Either way it was damn good.