Apartment cuisine: chana masala and stir-fried broccoli

This may look very similar to what I ate on one of my first nights at the apartment: something vaguely Indian and something green with rice.

But it's not! Instead of corn curry, it's chana masala, and instead of Trader Joe's Indian food, it's stir-fried broccoli.

In my totally inauthentic version of chana masala, the main ingredients are stewed tomatoes, chickpeas, plus a bunch of spices. I almost always have these three things lying around in the pantry -- stewed tomatoes are good for quick pasta sauces and tomato soups, chickpeas add protein to salads, and spices are good investments that last a long time. Despite my complaint that Indian food often involves so many hard-to-find spices that I rarely use, Shaila (a brilliant cook, by the way) told me that as long as you have cumin seeds, ground coriander, tumeric, raw mango powder, and chili powder you should be set for most Indian dishes. And even though I didn't have the last two things in my pantry this still tasted pretty delicious. As always, it gets better after sitting in the fridge and letting all the flavors come together.

Stir-fried broccoli with garlic is my favorite way of preparing the vegetable. Actually, stir-frying with garlic is my favorite way of preparing most greens. It's quick, easy and flavorful. Adding just a little bit of water/stock and covering the wok steams the broccoli a little bit and makes it more tender without overcooking the whole thing.

Chana Masala

I almost never measure the spices out but just eyeball them. Tweak their relative amounts to taste.

1 tbs oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp tumeric
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 can diced tomatoes

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute onions until soft, add garlic and all the spices and cook until the kitchen smells fantastic. Add in the chickpeas and the tomatoes. Turn up heat to high until everything boils. Turn heat down and simmer for ~10 min. Serve.

Stir-fried broccoli

1 tbs oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 head broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets
1/4 cup water/stock
Salt

Heat oil in wok over high heat, add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add broccoli and cook until it becomes a brighter green color. Pour in the stock, turn heat down to medium, and cover until broccoli is cooked through. Uncover and let most of the stock evaporate. Salt to taste and serve.