Your rice is done right and steaming.

“Borrowed from Hindi मसाला (masālā) / Urdu مسالا‎ (masālā, “spice(s)”), from Persian مصالح‎ (masâlih, “affairs, materials, spices”), plural of مصلحت‎ (maslahat, “affair, policy, best thing to do”), both from Arabic, derived from صَلَحَ‎ (ṣalaḥa, “be fit, competent, usable”)”.

C’est vrai. Masala makes the base of good rice usable and it’s the best thing to do.

I start with a wide and enameled pan or pot, and I start with oil. My habit is to use avocado oil because of the super-high flash point of 500 degrees, which gives me plenty of room to find a way to fuck things up and still not ruin it all.

Get it warm, but not super hot.

The first thing is, could be, whole spices, left to roast and toast in the oil for a while. If you’re a pro like that, try some cinnamon, or clove, or cardamom that way. Myself, I’m both minimalist as a cook and mostly anosmic from an old medical condition. So I skip straight to step two.

Cut up an onion, a couple cloves of garlic, and some ginger root. Start them frying slow and leave them be that way until you think they’re about to be overcooked. I only recently realized that the fresh ginger is essential to that long curry afterburn taste, or sensation. So I got some and it’s a regular part of it for me now.

If you’re doing it like a virtuous expert, you’ll have soaked some garbanzos alongside the rice, and they’ll be cooking by now too in another pot, although a precooked can of them works just fine. Or maybe you’re not a chickpea fanatic like me and will omit them completely.

I have this big enamel pot where the lid is also an enamel frying pan. So last time I used that lid to fry the aromatics and the big pot to cook and then drain the beans. The pan got scraped into the pot, leaving plenty of room for …

Whatever you like. In my case, a can of coconut milk (yogurt works okay too), a can of diced tomatoes, a jar of green chili, and whatever else you have laying around and like. Clean out that fridge. In my case this time that included a couple of old carrots, a leek, some scallions, a handful of fresh basil, some celery, some peanuts, and a whole lot of chiles de Arbol. In addition to the now-cooked chickpeas.

Other possibilities include: cabbage, cashews, potatoes, snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, bell pepper, shrooms, shallots, fish sauce, shrimp paste, and broth of whatever description.

Put them in the pot in the order of how long they’ll need cooking. Carrots = early. Basil = late.

Let it roll, and while it’s rolling this is the time for any other spicing. In the Asian cuisine the possibilities are endless. I’ll put my full collected list at the end*, but in the minimalist spirit I usually stick to the basics, like cumin, salt and pepper. You can also get premade pastes (which generally go in at the frying stage), or any variety of “curry powder” (which is a term almost as vague as “huevos rancheros”).

You’ll be ready to ladle it over the rice when you’re satisfied with the textures and taste, or when you’re too hungry to wait any longer.

So far this is vegetarian and even vegan. You are soooo good.

If you’re a sometimes-sinner like me, the very simplest thing is to boil up some already cooked sausage. I get twelve ounces of organic chicken andouille at the co-op here for six bucks even in these inflationary days. I might add turkey instead, but I generally don’t because to me storing it requires precise low temps, and cooking it is a whole separate and complex operation. If you have a method of doing meat in the same original pot, that doesn’t overcook everything else, I’m listening.

So there is one other big cluster of ingredients and techniques to detail–I mean cooking pinto beans as the basis for burritos and tacos. And there’s also using the garbanzos to create homemade hummus. The pintos and chickpeas are the other things I currently stock in bulk, besides rice. (Empty fourth bucket with probably be quinoa, once I figure out something outrageously delicious to do with it.) Burritos are even more important to me than curry. Hummus is what I eat for not-meals (and I’m getting better about eating it with vegetables instead of crackers).

We’ll see how ambitious I am about documenting all of that here.

In the meantime, enjoy the mega-list of spices, and three videos on curry that inspired me in various ways.

TASTIEST CHICKPEA CURRY | quick recipe!!
I think I want to try his rice flour idea, partly because I have other ideas for that ingredient too.
Watching it again reminded me that, yeah, raw chiles (de Arbol) should go in with the onion/garlic/ginger.
Also, it seems Aaliyah is the new Judy Garland.

BEST Chickpea curry recipe | Chana masala | Vegetarian |Vegan curry | Cook with me | Food with Chetna
She loves her blender, this one, which to me just makes work and dishes. Not to mention that incredibly messy and weirdly designed pressure cooker … But she’s authentic and flexible and looking at her food makes me hungry even if I’m not.

Chickpea Curry – 5 Minute Dinner
I feel the need. The need, for (fake pointless CHIRPY) speed. Lime? Maybe. And maybe rushing is a kind of minimalism for time. Bigger maybe.

* The definitely anti-minimalist list of potential spices:
bay
cinnamon
cardamom
coriander
pepper
salt
clove
cumin
‘chili powder’
turmeric
fennel
cilantro (even stems)
ginger
lemongrass
fenugreek
mustard
melon seed
(thai) basil
garam masala (and, there’s a lot of other Indian ones with obscure names that I’m too noob to have cared about … )

For the most part, if I’m going to bother, I’d rather get fresh as opposed to dried, much less powdered … )