So it’s a funny story, & by funny story I mean miserable story. My sister & I are stuck in Florida for a week visiting family, [check out
in the next few weeks for some inspired comic strips on the topic] & on Day 1 we go shopping. We get all sorts of things: hummus and carrots, chips and salsa, almond milk (I brought a box of buckwheat on the plane to make for breakfast) bananas, etc… it’s all good… WE THINK.And then we decide to make chickpeas. Chickpeas are super easy to make. (You can just follow this Actual Recipe if you want) So since we have been informed there’s going to be homemade fish curry, I say, “there will definitely be spices. We don’t need to buy that.”1
my sister, later: hey Sara, remember how you said there would be spices?
me: yeah?
her: well…
[the reveal: a tub of turmeric, a tub of cayenne, a tub of whole cloves.]
me: …that’s it?
her: that’s it.whoops
ok there’s also garlic paste and ginger paste in the fridge. and salt and pepper. and an onion. good thing we bought two more onions too. along with a can of muir glen crushed tomatoes.
STEP 1: stick the onions on a cutting board. chop with a dull knife that is basically a blunt instrument on the level of a hammer. Cry.
STEP 2: brown the onions in a big pot with some olive oil.2 cook and cook.3
STEP 3: Add a dollop of garlic paste and ginger paste. And four cloves.4
STEP 4: And half a teaspoon, measured in a teaspoon not a measuring spoon, of turmeric and the same in cayenne.5
STEP 5: throw in two huge cans of chickpeas and most of the tomatoes. Why most of it? no one else is gonna use it that’s why and this recipe could use all the good stuff in it that it can get.
STEP 6: we have a whole bag of carrots anyway. chop up all but four. throw them in the pot.
STEP 7: cook and cook and cook ad infinitum
STEP 8: those two hardboiled eggs we didn’t eat? cut them up and throw them into the pot. garnish with a little bit of chopped carrot tops.
yeah you can eat carrot tops, they’re perfectly good greens. If you mix them with other greens they even make a nice saag. I would NOT recommend just eating a whole pile of carrot tops however because the taste is a little… meh? BUT SINCE WE DIDN’T HAVE ANY OTHER GREENS…
Recipe #2: fried carrot tops
chop em all up. fry them with some garlic paste [don’t. seriously, if you take this horrid advice, at least chop up some fresh garlic, it’s so much better] i tasted a few, once they’d been cooked a bit, and my thought was “ugh. disgusting. tastes like carrot tops.” a few pieces on the bottom had gotten into the oil though and got nice and crispy, actually quite a pleasant texture experience,6 and they even tasted less like carrot tops. so I dumped in a bunch more oil and fried the rest into oblivion too. my rating would probably still have been “it sucks” but my sister’s rating was that they were “actually really good.” i take that with a grain of salt considering the state of the other food in the house which was mostly Indian take-out7; so, in the end, i have Scientifically Adjusted the results:
new recipe just dropped: fried carrot tops, yum!
sucks ☐ / passable ✓ / great ☐ / perfect ☐
oh right, I was talking about the chickpeas, wasn’t i. it tastes quite a bit like Moroccan chickpea stew. actually good! this is partially due to the ingredients. don’t skimp on the tomatoes, get the right kind. Muir Glen is good; other canned tomatoes are not always so good. getting the wrong kind can ruin everything
the chickpeas we made in florida
sucks ☐ / passable ✓ / great ☐ / perfect ☐
OH YEAH AND DON’T FORGET THE SALT AND PEPPER. a big handful of salt. a couple of them even, if you’re making a huge stew-sized pot. taste to make sure you like how it’s going.
was this experience enlightening? idk but at least i’m not dead
***general disclaimer. check certification & ingredients, use your judgment. not everything I review is certified
my first big mistake
contrary to popular belief, olive oil is a high-heat oil. however, we did not do this for any good reason but simply because there was no other bottle of oil in the entire house
no don’t stop yet. longer. way longer than you want to cook them. don’t let it burn
Cloves do not go in chickpeas. But they go with rice so good enough, it’ll add some flavor
because we couldn’t find any measuring spoons
legitimately. it was the only nice surprise in this disaster
which i had none of since Indian takeout is 90% butter and only 10% everything else