Last night, Alex made chickpeas. He has an Indian cookbook that insists that you don't buy just regular chickpeas, but kala chana, an ingredient most easily purchased on Devon. Fortunately, Alex doesn't work too far from there, so he bought the beans and necessary spices after work, and I met him for dinner (another entry there, perhaps?). We didn't get around to cooking them till last night, though.
The recipe called for fresh garam masala, which necessitated the purchase of a coffee grinder to grind the spices (my main contribution). Fresh garam masala is amazing. It's a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, pepper, and cumin seeds. (At least that's what this recipe called for--I just looked on wikipedia and apparently there are many variants.) After you grind it all up, it smells amazing, and sprinkled on top of kala chana, it tastes pretty good too.
The beans took forever to cook, though. Alex noted that he should cook them like he cooks any other beans next time, and ignore the recipe's not-so-helpful instructions.
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