Beans Cooked in the Indian Manner

My online friend Arnab has a great site called Another Subcontinent: South Asian Society and Culture.  It’s worth checking out if you’re even vaguely interested in Indian culture. In addition to the articles, fiction and music, there are forums where you can ask questions or just read.
Arnab, after an initial period of doubt about Rancho Gordo beans, has been come somewhat of a fan, I’m happy to say. In fact I’m happy to gloat, if necessary!

We’ve sold out of garbanzos for the season and it looks like we might be done with mayacobas as well, but I wanted to pass on his emails to me about cooking them. I think any mild bean, like the Cellini or Flagelolet, would make a fine substitute.

From Arnab:

okay, this is a little rough, but bear with me:

—
North Indian style Chhole (chickpeas)

Ingredients:

1 packet Rancho Gordo Garbanzo Beans
4-5 cloves
a few pods green cardamom
1 medium onion, chopped fine.
3/4 tablespoon each of ginger and garlic paste, crushed in a mortar/pestle, or whizzed in a food processor
1.5
tspns of the following, ground together in a coffee grinder: 1/2 tspn
turmeric, 1/2 tspn cumin seeds, 1/2 tspn coriander seeds, 1/3 tspn
mustard seeds, 1/4 tspn fenugreek seeds*
1/2 tspn amchur (mango powder)
1/2 tspn red chilli powder. (you might call it cayenne, right?)
1 pinch sugar

For Garnish:

1/2 Lime
chopped onion to taste
a little chopped cilantro
1 hot thai green chilli (or chile, if you will), minced

Preparation:

Soak, and cook the Garbanzo beans till just al dente, as per your method of choice.

While
the beans are cooking, heat some oil in a small saucepan, and add the
cloves and cardamom pods. saute for 1-2 minutes. Add the chopped onion
and saute for another 3-4 minutes, stirring all the while. As the edges
of the chopped onion begin to brown, add the ginger-garlic pastes.
Saute another 1-2 minutes, turn the heat down to medium, and add all
the powdered spices. Saute 3-4 minutes, stirring all the while. Add the
pinch of sugar, stir a little more, and pour the contents of the pan
into the pot with the cooked garbanzo beans. Mash some of the beans
against the side of the pot, and cook everything together for another
5-7 minutes over medium-low heat to incorporate flavours. Add salt.
Pour into a serving dish, squeeze the lime juice all over, top with the
chopped onions and cilantro and minced chilli. Serve with tortillas
(preferable) or steamed rice.

Options:

Add a pinch of garam masala and stir 1 minute before taking everything off heat.
You
could also add a chopped tomato after you’ve sauteed the spices. If you
do, make sure it cooks down and the oil separates before you add the
slurry to the beans.
If you have access to good tamarind, soak some
pulp in hot water, strain and simmer with sugar to make a thick’ish,
tangy sweet tamarind chutney, and lace the cooked beans with it.

*If
you don’t keep all the ingredients for the powdered spice mix around,
you can substitute a curry powder of your choice (ideally, from an
Indian store with high turnover). If you have access to a good Indian
store, look to see if they carry packaged spice blends for "Channa
Masala". If so, you could substitute that as well.

I then asked him about the mayacobas and he replied:

are you asking for a recipe for the mayacobas or if they can be cooked
the same way? as it happens, i did more or less cook them the same way,
except that with the mayacobas i used about 1.5 cups of chopped tomato
(added after the powdered spices had been fried). left out the mango
powder. the spice mix may have been a little different. i think i used
more red chilli powder and less coriander seeds. there’s no hard and
fast rules to the blend–basically you want to remember that fenugreek
seeds are very bitter, that coriander can overpower, and that the
mustard’s only there for a little bite.

you may recoil in
horror, but when i first started cooking, my mother’s advice about
cooking dried beans was to cook them much the same way i would cook red
meat. and that’s more or less what i do. with the garbanzos i make them
more tangy (with the mango powder) to gratify taste memory. of course,
you wouldn’t garnish most meat curries with loads of chopped onion or
squeeze limes over them.