#the quickest

Chickpeas are, verily, the king of all non-fresh beans. They’re good for basically every application, they always taste good, they always make everybody happy. They stand up to just about everything, so it was time, on a day when I had little else going on dinner-wise, to let them be the stars of the show.

One of the other things that had improved our lives immeasurably since moving here is the presence, at our local farmer’s market, of fresh mushrooms all the time. Mostly oyster mushrooms, although he also always provides shiitake (this is why there are so many oyster mushrooms in everything I cook).

In this case, needing dinner quickly, the obvious solution was to combine the two things.

So I heated and oiled a pan, then sprinkled a little red pepper in there to give it some heat, then minced some garlic, then some diced carrot. When the carrot had started to soften, I added some of the diced mushrooms, then poured in the drained, rinsed* chickpeas and left it all to heat through.

Separately, I started a bechamel-based curry sauce. I melted butter in a pan and waited for it to foam off, then in went some cayenne pepper, some marjoram and some cumin. Then I sprinkled flour in and cooked the flour, then added the milk and let it thicken. When the whole thing was just about done I poured the bean mixture into a bowl, then the sauce, and stirred them together to mix.

The results, done in about fifteen minutes, were a huge hit, especially with R (which was something of a surprise, honestly).