Indian Food and a Lesson Learned

Chickpeas and Potatoes

(from Big Girls, Small Kitchen)

This is one of the recipes I planned ahead for. I picked out a few recipes and made a master shopping list based on a quick read-through of all the recipes I planned to make. I started making it while the Salmon Florentine was in the oven, which proved to be a bit of a disaster. It was already 9:30 or so and my dear friend, Preetal, was waiting for me to go with her to meet some friends and there were BURNING MUSTARD SEEDS POPPING EVERYWHERE. But I wanted to have this recipe done for the next day so I could just reheat it real quick. Yep, I bit off more than I could chew.

The recipe called for NOT YELLOW mustard seeds. I, of course, didn't read the recipe closely enough when making my shopping list. The recipe said "black or brown mustard seeds (not yellow)." So what did I do? I bought yellow mustard seeds. I figured since those were the only ones I saw at Meijer, those were the most common ones and probably the ones I needed. Wrong-o. I actually didn't realize my mistake until I tried making the recipe again the next day. But let me tell you about the popping mustard seeds, first...

The recipe says to heat oil in a pan until smoking, put the mustard seeds in and cover immediately. Well, I was doubling the recipe, so I had to dip my little measuring spoon into the bottle twice. I dipped once, dumped them into the pan. I went in quickly for the second dip and POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! When they say cover immediately, they mean COVER IMMEDIATELY. Those babies pop all over the place! Yes, in the time it takes you to measure a second dose of mustard seeds, the first round is already popping. Moral: measure all the crazy

popping mustard seeds first before dumping them into the smoking hot oil. You know how they do on Martha Stewart's show? All she has to do is dump the contents of those pretty little glass ramekins into her big mixing bowl, put it in the oven, and MAGIC. Out comes a perfect cake. Yeah, that's how it happens in my kitchen, too (pff).

Not only did they pop all over the place, but man, did they burn! I have one of those fancy super-mega-burners on my stove and it burns everything you put on it. Unless you're boiling a pot of water. It's hard to burn water because it tends to just evaporate. But that's pretty much all it's good for. I should have known better because I've burned many a food item on that burner. I'll learn one of these days. Do you know what burnt mustard seeds smell like? They smell like the most permeating Heinz yellow mustard scent. Seriously, my apartment smelled like mustard for days. Maybe those black or brown mustard seeds smell differently, but those yellow ones... They smell like your favorite Coney Dog topping. Moral: know your equipment... and accept it.

Eventually, I accepted my defeated and committed myself to trying the recipe again the next day.

Chana Bateta- Second Attempt: Success.

Let's just call my late-night Chana experience a trial-run. Once I learned my lesson(s), things really went rather smoothly. And let me tell you, that stuff is tasty!