Chicken vindaloo and chana masala

As you can probably tell by my last few posts, I'm making a lot of Indian food lately. I finally located some chana masala spice at the Indian grocery store near my house, so I decided to make chana masala for some friends. I had made chicken tikka masala a lot recently, so I decided to try something new there, as well: chicken vindaloo.

Everything was delicious, as is everything that has come out of my slow cooker in the last month. I think I have used the Crock Pot more in the past month than in the previous five years combined. I guess I was just waiting for some amazing Indian recipes to come along.

Chicken vindaloo

This version isn't as mind-blowingly spicy as some that I've had (I'm looking at you, Mt. Everest), but it was good, and a lot quicker than I expected.

Chop 1.5 lb. each of chicken thighs and russet potatoes. Set aside. Puree 3 cups onions, vinegar, tomatoes (I left these out and opted for a small can of tomato sauce instead), garlic, ginger, tomato paste, and the following spices: garam masala, ground turmeric, paprika, ground cumin, ground coriander, and ground cayenne pepper. Next time I would add more cayenne.

I wasn't able to puree these things because I don't have a food processor. I guess I need to get one, if I'm going to get serious about Indian cooking, although I don't mind the big chunks of onions either.

Fry this mixture in two tbsp. vegetable oil, then add the chicken and potatoes and cook for about 25 min. total. I kind of forgot to add some chicken broth you're supposed to add, but it was fine just the same. Oh, and I kind of added an extra half-pound of potatoes by accident. Oh well.


Years ago, when I was tearing my hair out with the deliciousness of local Indian buffets, I wish I had known how easy Indian food is to make. You can't mess this up, even when you accidentally add 1/3 too many potatoes and no chicken broth. And this was certainly easier to make with Dave and Nick chopping up the chicken thighs for me!

Chana masala

Chana masala was the first Indian dish I ever tried, and it has remained one of my absolute favorites. The recipe book labeled this "curried chickpeas." I label it "delicious."

This is basically cooked the same way as curried black chickpeas. Throw chickpeas and water in a slow cooker and add spices, onions, garlic, ginger, and serrano peppers. The spices in this case were a little different: cumin seeds, ground coriander, garam masala, chana masala, red chili powder, red chili powder, and salt. And you also cook for 14 hours instead of 9, so to make this for lunch today, I started it at 10:30 last night. Weird.


The regular chickpeas got a lot bigger than the black chickpeas, and they also started to break open a bit. I really get how cooking these in a slow cooker imparts so much more flavor to the chickpeas than just soaking them in water and boiling them over the stove.

So here's our whole plate, complete with brown rice / quinoa pilaf and a baked samosa:


I think I need to go back to French food again for a while, or my neighbors might complain to our association.