The Faudie Finally Cooks a Gourmet Meal

Yes, it's true. I finally cooked a Gourmet meal--and that's Gourmet as in Gourmet magazine.

Last Friday, my copy of the March 2009 Gourmet arrived, and, as usual, I quickly thumbed through it, admired some of the pretty pictures and scoffed at many of the recipes and some of the articles. But unlike previous issues, I actually found myself tearing off pieces of those reader-response card inserts (those damn things are so annoying , not to mention wasteful) to bookmark a few recipes that I really and truly thought I'd make. Gads, does that mean I'm moving out of faudiedom to--heavens to Murgatroid!--foodiedom?

The first (and probably the only) recipe I made from this issue is a variation on a dish I've made before--tomatoey spiced chickpeas--sans chicken. It appears in the magazine's "Quick Kitchen" section, and I'll agree that it's a damn quick and easy dish to put together, even when you're like me and making your chickpeas from a bag, not a can.

Tomatoey Spiced Chickpeas1/3 C olive oil
1 T ground cumin
1 T ground coriander
1 t ground ginger
Rounded 1/4 t hot red pepper flakes
1 1.5" cinnamon stick
1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes in juice
2 15-oz. cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 C chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 C finely chopped mint

1. Heat the oil in a 12" heavy skillet over medium heat unit it shimmers, then cook the cumin, coriander, ginger, pepper flakes and cinnamon stick, stirring constantly, until fragrant and a shade darker (about 2 min.).
   
2. Add the tomatoes with their juices, breaking them up with a spoon.
   
3. Add the chickpeas.
   
4. Simmer the stew, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened (about 20 min.).
   
5. Discard the cinnamon stick.
   
6. Stir in the parsley and mint.

Yield: 4 as a main course, 6 as a side dish

Nutritional Info
Gourmet does not provide nutritional information with its recipe. I suspect if readers saw the nutritional data for some of the recipes it prints, they'd cancel their subscriptions. Ignorance is bliss, right?

The Faudie's Futzing
Heh, would it surprise you, Gentle Reader, that I just now realized that the recipe calls for a total of 30 ounces of prepared chickpeas? Oh well. Given my past experience of converting self-prepared chickpeas to canned chickpeas, I probably wound up with the right amount by just measuring out 15 ounces of dried chickpeas. Even then, I honestly wondered if I should have prepared fewer.

And you probably won't be surprised to learn that I didn't use a third of a cup of olive oil. That's just way too much for me. Since I was using my old nonstick wok, I knew I wouldn't need too much oil anyway, but I really don't think I used quite enough since my spices got doughy in the little oil I used as I was toasting them. However, that didn't affect their flavor.

One last futzing: I omitted the parsley and mint. I'd originally planned to throw in some freshly chopped cilantro, but when the boy learned I was making chickpeas, he said he wanted some too. I knew that throwing in cilantro would sour him on the dish, so I left it out. While he only tried a bit--and thoroughly enjoyed it--he has yet to have a full serving. That's what leftovers are for.

Just a note, Gentle Reader, if you try this recipe for yourself: Consider pouring the tomatoes and their juice into a bowl before you start cooking so you can break up the tomatoes with your hands or your utensils of choice. I had a helluva time doing it in the beginning-to-simmer pot with just the wooden spoon I was using, so I wound up breaking out my lovely Victorinox paring knife to cut them up, and even that took me quite some time. I was afraid what little sauce I had would cook off to nothing by the time I got the tomatoes broken up.