Chickin’ about with Chickpeas

So, after a long time, I am back to blogging!

Since my latest encounter with demons of the past *wink wink*, nearly ruining my life and escaping at the last instant, partly due to a pretty rash demon that decided to run over me and dive off the deep end, I have been looking at things to do other than battling said demons. Since I haven’t cooked in ages, relying on the great delis around office to sate my hunger, I have decided to take up cooking as my new passion, among others.

So, to start off with this recipe, nothing fancy, a little bit of Channa Masala (spicy Chickpea curry, for those Indic-challenged). Given that my cooking skills were as rusty as the skillet I was going to use (ahem), I didn’t have much hope. Yet, I pushed on: took two handfuls of dry chickpeas, let them soak overnight. Once the chickpeas were fairly swollen, I put them into a medium-sized pyrex bowl, and into the microwave, where they cooked for about twenty minutes. While they were cooking, I cut onions, tomatoes and set other needed spices ready. Once all was set, I started following the instructions in the recipe to make my great Channa Masala.

But I was in for a suprise.

For I had *not* been using any quantity of measure to control the amount of channa masala I was making, having been brought up with the engineer’s mentality that following an instruction manual to the letter was against the spirit of the tinkerer-engineer. So, off I went, cooking, adding this spice and that spice, like a Walt-Disney alchemist; the only effects missing were the colorful puffs of smoke that comes up in the cartoons. In the end, I tasted my concoction.

Tears started streaming from my eyes.

I hastily added a boatload of lemon juice to tune down the spiciness.

And tasted it again.

Now, the channa masala wasn’t spicy at all. It was bland, and *lemony*. I had ended up making my Channa Masala a Lemon Masala, with Channa here and there.

But it was way more bearable than the incredibly hot Channa Masala that existed a few moments ago.

Anyway I guess the lesson here is to stick to the books until I master the art of cooking. So much for claiming to throw away the manual

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