Chana masala from the tin, not from dried chickpeas

Canned chickpeas are already cooked. They need time in a sauce that tastes like something, not a long simmer to soften. The work is the onion and the spices.

A 400 g tin drains to about 240 g. Two tins give you 480 g, which is just under 3 cups. The canned chickpeas chart is the cup version of that weight. Rinse them. The tin liquid is salty and it thins the sauce.

Brown the onion first

Ten minutes on a chopped onion feels long on a weeknight. It is the difference between chana that tastes stewed and chana that tastes like tomato soup with beans in it. You want brown edges, not a dark burnt crust. Stir often once the color starts.

Bloom the ground spices in the oil for half a minute. Raw cumin tastes dusty. If they start to smoke, the pan is too hot. A splash of water cools it without washing the flavor out.

Thicken without boiling it to paste

Mashing a quarter of the chickpeas gives the sauce body from the chickpeas themselves. The 8 g of cornstarch is a backup for tins that came in a very thin tomato sauce. 8 g is about a level tablespoon. Stir it into cold water first. Cornstarch dumped into a hot pan turns into lumps. The cornstarch chart and the cornstarch substitute cover the swap if the tin is empty. Flour needs roughly twice the weight and a longer cook, or the sauce tastes raw.

Lemon at the end brightens a sauce that has been simmering. Add it off the boil so it stays sharp. Serve it on cooked rice. The curry keeps 3 days in the fridge and thickens overnight. Loosen leftovers with a splash of water, not more tomato.