Chana Masala | J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
Why It Works:
- Adding baking soda to the onions helps them break down and caramelize faster.
- Doctoring up store-bought garam masala with additional spices produces a flavor that’s both complex and suited to the dish.
- Simmering canned chickpeas lends them plenty of flavor.
- Grinding the garlic in lemon juice helps prevent it from turning too sharp and pungent, while still allowing its aroma to shine
With Onions, the Browner the Better: Almost all channa masala recipes start with an aromatic base of onions, garlic, ginger, and chiles. The onions are typically browned until just before they start to burn and turn bitter. Unlike with a traditional French onion soup, in which the onions are cooked slowly enough to become candy-sweet in the process, here we’re looking for browning with only mild sweetness. We also want the onion to break down fully, which helps lend body to the sauce later on. The good news is that for channa masala, we want our onions to break down and not get too sweet, which means that this is the perfect time to break out the baking soda and high heat.
Taming Garlic’s Bite: The addition of garlic, ginger, and chiles varies quite a lot in different channa masala recipes. Some have you chop and sauté the aromatics with the onions, which leads to more sweet richness. Others have you pound them all together with a mortar and pestle into a fine paste that gets added just before the spices. This technique yields much brighter results. Instead of pounding the garlic, ginger, and chiles together alone, I pounded them with a tablespoon of lemon juice in the mortar and pestle, along with a pinch of salt (for its abrasive properties), then dumped the whole thing into the pot after my onions had sufficiently browned. It worked like a charm, giving me the best of both worlds.
Maximizing Spices: Channa masala is a simple, home-style dish. Unfortunately, the average American home pantry is not quite the same as an Indian home pantry, which means that many of the spices need to be bought new, and some of the spices (like amchur—the dried mango powder found in some recipes) are near impossible to find. That turns a simple, inexpensive dish into a complicated and expensive one, especially if you don’t often cook with these spices. I decided to limit my spice selection by starting with store-bought garam masala, a spice blend used to flavor curries and other Indian dishes, at both the start and the end of cooking. It varies quite a bit in its ingredients, but most store brands I’ve tried do just fine in a pinch. (Of course, if you want to go all out, here’s my own garam masala recipe.)
I doctored up the store-bought stuff with a few extra common spices: Coriander seeds, cumin, black pepper, and turmeric are all easy-to-find pantry staples. The only other spice I used that’s not quite as common is black mustard seed.
With a garam masala that’s going to be added straight to a liquid-based dish, the spices ought to be toasted before grinding in order to develop flavor and complexity. But for a dish in which the spices will be bloomed directly in oil, like in this recipe, pre-toasting is less of a priority. It certainly doesn’t hurt to do it, but the effects on the resulting dish will be less pronounced. I made a couple of versions of the channa masala, adding ground spices directly to the pan while sautéing the ginger/garlic/chile mixture, before adding some canned tomatoes that I crushed by hand (canned tomatoes are so much better for cooked applications like this than most fresh tomatoes you can get) and a big handful of chopped cilantro leaves.
It was pretty good, but needed a little more punch.
I really love the texture and flavor added by cumin and black mustard seeds sizzled in hot oil—they flavor the oil, which in turn lends a nice earthy base to the entire dish—so I added that step to my recipe, heating oil, dropping in the spices, and letting them sputter before adding my onions to brown.
Use Canned Chickpeas: Channa masala can range in texture from almost soupy to dry enough that you can pile it up without a problem. I like it somewhere in the middle: just moist enough that it spreads into a bowl, but not so wet that you need a spoon to eat it. I let the curry simmer on the stovetop for about half an hour, adjusting the consistency with water as necessary. Just before I pull it off the heat, I finish it up with a little fresh lemon juice, some more chopped cilantro, and a dash more garam masala.
In northern India, spicy stewed chickpeas are eaten with kulcha, a small, leavened loaf of bread, but for me, homemade naan does just fine as an edible utensil. (You can also make that naan fully vegan by replacing the milk or yogurt with 13 ounces of water and 1 ounce of vegetable oil.)
Chana Masala | Zainab Shah
Variations of chana masala, which means spiced chickpeas, are found across South Asia. This version, particularly common in Punjab, calls for a simple spiced onion and tomato mixture, which serves as the foundation for the humble chickpea. The nutty and buttery legume benefits from both dried chile powder and fresh chiles, coriander, and the spice blend garam masala. Thinly sliced ginger and cilantro, added upon serving, add freshness. Both canned and dried chickpeas work for this dish, and in the case of the former, the resulting bowl of comfort feels nothing short of a miracle in under 30 minutes.
Yield: 4 servings, Prep Time: 10 min, Cook Time: 30 min
- 2 Tbsp ghee or neutral oil
- 1 Tbsp garlic paste or freshly grated garlic
- 1 Tbsp ginger paste or freshly grated ginger (from a peeled 2-inch piece), plus more fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into matchsticks, for serving
- 1 medium red onion, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 Thai green or bird’s eye chiles, chopped
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- ¼ tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp Kashmiri or other hot red chile powder
- 4 Roma tomatoes, finely chopped
- ¾ tsp fine sea salt
- 2 (15-oz) cans of chickpeas, drained, or 3 cups of cooked chickpeas (see Tip)
- 2 cups unsalted chicken or vegetable stock, or water
- ¾ tsp garam masala
- 2 Tbsp chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems
- Rice or roti and lemon wedges, for serving (optional)
In a medium pot, melt ghee on medium heat. Once melted, stir in the garlic, ginger and onion. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the green chiles, cumin, turmeric, coriander and chile powder. Continue stirring for 30 seconds so the spices don’t burn. Add the tomatoes and their juices and salt. Increase the heat to high and cook, stirring often, until the mixture is jammy, 5 to 7 minutes.
Stir in the chickpeas and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the mixture has thickened slightly, 5 to 7 minutes. With the back of a spoon, smash some of the chickpeas against the inside of the pot to thicken the mixture; continue smashing until it reaches the desired thickness.
Sprinkle with garam masala and top with cilantro and ginger. If desired, serve rice or roti and lemon wedges alongside.
Tip: If using dried chickpeas, place 1 pound in a medium bowl and cover with 3 inches of water. Stir in ½ teaspoon baking soda and soak for at least 7 hours or overnight. Drain and transfer the chickpeas to a medium pot. Cover with several inches of fresh water and simmer until tender, 1½ to 2 hours, then drain. Freeze any extra chickpeas in an airtight container for up to 6 months.
