I have a question, when you have a little time… I want to make the Amla Chickpea recipe in your book. It calls for 10-15 pieces of whole dried amla. But the Indian grocer I went to didn’t have dried, only frozen! And they’re very large, and not many in a package… I’m just wondering how the fresh/frozen translates over to the dried… Thanks.

My family loves Chana Masala so I will try your version and I will let you know how it turns out.

The chickpeas with amla calls for 10-15 whole. These appeared to be chopped up, an I thought possibly chopped in half, but they turned out to be quarters and smaller (it was hard to tell until they were fully hydrated during cooking). If you revise the cookbook, I’d like to request you put weights or volumes on ingredients like this, rather than “10-15″ — I probably used half of what I was supposed to, but it was still delicious.

For that matter, weights/volumes on items such as tomatoes and onions rather than “half a medium onion sliced” is one of my recipe pet peeves: How big is a medium onion anyway? (Even worse is grated parmesan cheese — how much is a half-cup of grated cheese? It depends on your grater — it could be a half-ounce of microplane snow, or three ounces of box grater shreds)

Loving everything I’ve cooked from the book so far (Rajmah, the amla chickpeas, and the nihari — several times).

Happy Cooking.
Gloria Lopez

First up were the black lentils with rice. This was a spicy dish that we enjoyed a great deal. Second was a dish with yellow lentils (or split peas?) and split chickpeas with tomatoes. We also liked the seasoning of this dish very much. Third was a recipe for white lima beans. The flavors of this dish were more subtle, so it resonated a little less with us, but I liked it as well. Of the three, I’d say the middle dish was our favorite. That is one I definitely would try making!

If you’re ever back home and looking to taste test, let me know — we’d be happy to help out! Good luck with the new book! I can’t wait to get it and work my way through it!

This was a nice spicy soup that I enjoyed. I really liked the slight kick that hits you a little after the flavor, and warms you inside (nice on these chilly/rainy days). The soup itself was thin…I think maybe it’s usually made with cream or some type of dairy product, but I didn’t really miss that. There were tiny “chunks” (chunk implies bigger pieces than they were) of pepper and ginger (perhaps) that were a little offputting, texture-wise, since the soup was so thin, but that was probably the only negative for me. The seitan was nice to have in there as something chewy and filling.

I was lucky enough to sample a piece of chicken with a spice rub on it that was really flavorful and made the chicken so much more alive than the boring chicken I usually make.

More bonuses were fresh roti (yum! I need to try my hand at making those…it seems so easy!) and some spiced/roasted chickpeas that I didn’t get too creative with – mostly just snacking on them after a little reheating. I’ve made something similar, and I think they are a great snack.

I did use the suggestion to put sambhar powder on my popcorn (I’m partial to kettle corn) and now I don’t think I want it any other way! I loved the little bit of heat that I got, combined with the sweetness of the kettle corn.