For all your savory waffle needs

Last night it was doing that worst-of-both-worlds snow rain business that the weather channel describes as "wintery mix" for lack of a better term. I was in the mood for some comfort food. Another qualification was that this comfort food needed to use cilantro, as I had some cilantro that was badly in need of using. In my search for cilantro recipes, I came across a chana masala waffle topped with samosa filling and a cilantro chutney. The recipe was vegan, but I could see there was a lot to work with. While kind of out there, it nicely fit into two of my comfort foods categories: breakfast for dinner and Indian food. Although my cabinets now resemble a pretty robust spice market now, I realized I was still short chickpea flour and chana masala, so as an added bonus this trip necessitated a trip to Kalustyan's. That place is amazing. Despite being a pretty small store, they have every weird, speciality ingredient I've ever gone looking for. It was definitely worth the 10-block slog through blinding mix to get what I needed and try to avoid too many impulse buys (came out with some black lava salt, but that's really more a necessity than anything else).

For the meal itself, it had three components, all pretty simple: the cilantro chutney, the beef samosa filling (although in this case it was used as more of a topping and less of a filling), and the chana masala waffles. For the cilantro chutney, I don't really have a recipe because I basically just made it the way I would make a pesto (throwing stuff in a food processor until it seems about right). I will say it involved the following in some form or another: cilantro, lime juice, onions, garlic, green chilis, and coconut oil.  Unfortunately, it never got quite the right consistency. I think my food processor isn't what it used to be. It was more of a paste than a sauce. It made me regret not just buying some chutney at Kalystyans. The only thing that stopped me was remembering that having borderline cilantro was the original impetus for the dish.  

For the beef topping, I did the following.

Boiled some water in a saucepan and added:

1 cup peas

2 peeled potatoes

Allowed to boil until the potatoes were soft, then drained and mashed them together. Meanwhile, I 

heated some oil in a skillet on high heat. Threw in:

1 diced onion

4 chopped garlic cloves (if you aren't obsessed with garlic, you could probably get away with 2)

Heated until the onions started to get limp, then added:

1 lb of ground beef

Stirred until beef was all browned. Then time to add pretty much all the spices in my cabinet. I added:

1 T minced ginger (so from the fridge, not cabinet)

1/2 tsp pepper

1 1/2 tsp salt 

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp turmeric 

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

green chilies (the rest of the little can I had opened to make the chutney)

Once that was all heated and mixed. I add the potato mixture to it. The result: 

Mush! But tasty, mush. 

Once that was done, I got to work on the waffles. Mixed the following wet ingredients:

3/4 c milk
2 eggs
1/4 oil
1 T minced ginger
1 T tomato paste
a couple of cloves of minced garlic (honestly, goes in pretty much everything I make)

In a separate bowl, I mixed the following dry ingredients (you will note some familiar faces):

1 1/4 chickpea flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp chana masala
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (Side note: my favorite spice right now--have been putting it on everything from salmon burgers to popcorn)
1/2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp salt (I used black lava salt, but I suppose you could use the boring table stuff)

Add the wet to the dry and mix to incorporate. Cook in waffle iron. Which should look like this (provided your waffle iron is as awesome as mine is):

Once that's done, just pile some of your beefy mush on top of a spicy waffle (which smells amazing while cooking, I must say). Throw some cilantro chutney on top (or really, the chutney of your choice), and you've got yourself a tasty dinner. Or breakfast, as honestly that's when I ate the leftovers. Verdict: delicious.

Better than it looks. If that's even possible.