Tuesday 3 August 2010

Chickpea curry

I managed to cook the chickpea curry right this time. Everyone at the picnic, even our Indian and Bangladesh friends who grew up eating this gave their thumbs up. I can't thank my slow cooker enough.

After soaking the dried beans overnight, I boiled them in the slow cooker (on high heat) for 4 hours.

While they were simmering away, I prepared the curry mixture.

In case you're interested, here are the steps:
This is not really a recipe but you can find many good ones online.
1. Pour some oil in the pan. Toast some mustard and cumin seeds until they sizzle.
2. Saute chopped onion, grated ginger and minced garlic and fry until fragrant.
3. Add a teaspoon each of curry powder and chilli powder. Toss in some curry leaves and sliced green chilli into the mixture.
4. Then add 4 chopped up fresh tomatoes (or canned ones) in the mixture. Fry until tomato is soft.
5. Add in potatoes (cut into small chunks).
6. Let everything simmer for about 10 minutes until you reach a consistency like the photo below, then stir in the chickpeas and cook for another hour or so. If you like your curry rich and creamy, you can add coconut milk to the mixture. Finally, add salt and cilantro leaves before serving.

As I like the chickpeas to be really soft and mushy, I poured everything back into the slow cooker to simmer on low heat for another 4 hours. The slow cooker is perfect for cooking chickpeas because you don't have to worry about the curry drying out or getting burnt even after hours of cooking.

After a long day of cooking, the peas were very tender and moist. In other words, they were delicious!

10 comments:

Open Kitchen Concept said...

We get to eat these during the Sep potluck... Woah.. We're in luck!

Blur Ting said...

Yes, I will make this!

Amel said...

YUM YUM...after taking that long to cook it, I bet it tastes SOOOO heavenly!!!

Anonymous said...

Would canned chickpeas compromise the quality? Thanks.

Blur Ting said...

Amel - Actually just plain boiled chickpeas taste pretty good too.

Blur Ting said...

Anon - I have never used canned ones before but from my understanding, they taste just as good, perhaps even softer and smoother.

Malar said...

Ting,
Usually we use pressure cooker to cook dhal/chickpea! It's faster! May be 2-3 whistle and it's done.
This pressure cooker look like enclosed vessel. It use pressurizing method to cook. You can survey it in indian shop!

Unknown said...

Oh my God I want to eat thir right now. I will make some do you think the canned chickpeas woukd do?

Blur Ting said...

Malar - Thanks for the recommendation. Since I don't cook this very often, I probably will use my slow cooker for now. It's very sloooowww I know :-)

Blur Ting said...

RM - It's perfectly fine to use canned ones. It'll probably taste the same.

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