Chickpeas and Yellow Split Peas plus Spinach Saag

I’ve been in an Indian mood lately. Probably because I’m reading this book called Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. It’s about 1000 pages long and I’m just about at the halfway point. So I’ll be craving Indian food and using the Madhur Jaffrey cookbook for a few more months, but this week it’s back to the Mediterranean – I’ve been missing pasta.

Chickpeas and Channa Dal in Mint Sauce – I didn’t have enough mint for this recipe. I’m growing mint but I knew I wouldn’t have enough, and Whole Foods was out of mint, so I had to use what I could pick off from my little plant – 1/2 cup of packed leaves, not a full cup. So it wasn’t a minty sauce, but it was really good – I think the tamarind paste gives it a great flavor. This calls for green chillies, but it’s not spicy – I removed all the seeds from them which takes away the heat factor, but you have to be really careful with those little seeds!

• 1 1/2 cups dried chickpeas
• 3/4 cup yellow split peas
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon chopped ginger
• 3 green chillies, chopped
• 1 cup mint leaves, packed, washed and chopped
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 oz chopped tomatoes
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coriander
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
• 3 tablespoons tamarind paste

Cook the chickpeas. I just bought a pressure cooker and it works very fast for cooking beans. I soaked the chickpeas for 4 hours and then pressure cooked them for 3 minutes and they were done perfectly. You can’t cook split peas in the pressure cooker, for some reason, so I cooked those on the stove and then proceeded with the following:

Combine the garlic, ginger, green chillies, and mint in a blender. Add 6-8 tablespoons of water, as needed, and blend until pureed. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Add the onions and fry until cooked. Add the tomatoes until they break up and darken. Add the blended spice paste and cook, stirring for 5 minutes. Add the chickpeas and split peas and some cooking liquid, then sit in the salt, and remaining spices and tamarind paste. Mix thoroughly, cover. lower heat, and simmer for 1/2 hour.

Spinach Saag

• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 -2 green chillies
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 4 oz tomatoes
• 3 bags of spinach
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

Put the oil in a large pot, over medium high heat. When it’s hot, add the chillies, onion, and garlic. Stir and cook until the onions are brown. Add the tomato and cook for 2 minutes. Add the spinach and salt. Allow the spinach to wilt and then add more until all the bags are in the pot. Turn heat down to medium, cover, and cook for 25 minutes. Uncover and add the garam masala and stir. Cook, uncovered another 5 minutes until there is almost no liquid left in the pan – increase the heat if necessary.