What's for Dinner, Sat., March 8, 2025

[chowmama]

8. A mashup of 2 Indian recipes

I wanted to try a recipe for Butter Chickpeas, similar to Butter Chicken (Chicken Makhani), but more vegetarian. Not vegan because, you know, butter (and heavy cream), but otherwise...

Then I wanted spinach on the side, possibly in a Palak curry sauce involving coconut milk that I had on hand. This was starting to look like a lot of parts and general fussiness. And I did want to use all of what I had on hand, without any unused bits and dabs. I decided to combine the recipes.

I had the herbs and spices, except for fenugreek leaves which were optional anyway. If I used the entire can of coconut milk, I could skip the heavy cream. I blanched the spinach, squeezed it dry, chopped it and added it to the chickpeas in sauce at the end, along with extra chopped cilantro, leftover from the amount I had to wash and chop for the garnish at the end. I didn't bother to measure out the exact amount of tomato paste, but the small can looked close enough. The only leftover bit is half a serrano. I'll use that.

The sauce is great and I'm writing it down. On the other hand, the chickpeas were done through with no crunchy centers, but never did become really soft. I didn't add salt during the cooking, so it wasn't that. It was tasty and not tooth-breaking, but it was unexpected enough that I'm wondering if I shouldn't pressure-can the leftovers to try to soften as well as store them.

Anyway, I'm definitely doing the sauce again. Possibly with some chicken legs from the freezer.