Back once again

Lunch: Chickpea masala with gram flour pancake

I’ve got nothing new for you this week. On purpose.

There’s nothing wrong with using what you have, whether that’s a lunch idea that’s been here before or whether it’s food that’s lurking in your freezer. I’ve got both for you. Sort of.

Is it the same?

After my freezer foraging over the weekend and realising that I really do need to use up a few bits and pieces that I had squirrelled away, I made the conscious decision to not come up with any new lunch idea this week. I could use what I already had.

Hmm…I’ve talked about this chickpea masala before. I could just reshare the post repackaged with a new photo. After all, only 51 people saw it last time.

But it’s not the same lunch. It’s the same recipe, but not the same lunch.

It has a different accompaniment. This week’s one was leftovers from a dinner, frozen, reheated.

On any different day, what we cook and what we eat is different. Even if it’s the same. The ingredients, how we feel, the time and attention we give the food, and how we eat it all affect it.

I’ve cooked this recipe many times in the last couple of years. I’ve shared it with friends via WhatsApp. I’ve shared it around the table at a big family meal.

The recipe gets tweaked. Different beans if I can’t get black chickpeas. Different tomatoes. Ground cumin, not seeds. More chilli. Less garlic. Different oil. With rice, with bread, with bhaji.

And if you cook this too, it will be different again.

Cook while you work // Make-ahead

Black chickpea masala

And rustle up a gram flour pancake to go with it

This recipe for Black Chickpea Masala is from Biona. It uses the Biona tinned black chickpeas, but I’ve made it with other tinned kala chana and regular chickpeas, both are much cheaper and more readily available.

If you want to make this one just for lunch, it’s a good ‘leave to cook while you go back to work’ one.

Spend 10 minutes prepping and then cooking off the onions, garlic and spices. Then once you add in the chickpeas and tinned tomatoes, you can leave it simmering away for 30-40 minutes while you go back to work.

It’s a warm and hearty dish on its own, but I wanted something to scoop it up with, so I made a very simple gram flour pancake to go with it.

To make the pancake, just whisk together roughly equal quantities of gram flour (chickpea flour) with water so you get a pancake-like batter. Add some salt. Cook in a little butter or oil. You could add any other flavours you wanted to the batter such as chilli, chopped coriander, or nigella seeds.

Not feeling the love with this week’s lunch?

How about dahl with chickpea pancake, warm sweet potato and chickpea salad, or roasted carrot houmous?

P.S. ICYMI here’s last week’s post.

Is it something to do with it being a bargain?