Kala Chana Masala

What your child practised

• Dicing vegetables
• Grinding with a mortar and pestle
• Sautéing
• Building a basic Indian curry sauce
• Cooking rice in a rice cooker

What we explored

There are two families of chickpea: desi, which are small, dark and rough-coated, and kabuli, the large pale ones most children have met in hummus.

The same legume turns up in falafel, in hummus, in curries, in soups and as a snack — a good illustration of how one ingredient travels between kitchens.