Weekend Cooking: Chole, Indian Chickpea Curry

Weekend Cooking

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. It is hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

I haven’t done a Weekend Cooking post for a while. But recently, I’ve made some new dishes and remembered to take photographs!

For lunch, in the Netherlands we traditionally eat sandwiches. I am not so keen on sandwiches and try to find alternatives when I can. Chole turned out to be a really nice lunch time meal, and would also serve well as a light meal at dinner time.

I got this recipe from a Dutch website, Vegatopia. The recipe suggested naan bread, which I got from the shop, and carrot salad. My last attempt at carrot  salad wasn’t successful so I sliced up a large carrot and boiled it until it was tender. It made for a fun decoration.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients for 2 people

1 tin of chickpeas (425 ml or 1 lbs)

1 onion, diced

2 tomatoes (or use a tin of peeled tomatoes in juice, which is what I did)

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon cinnamon

a pinch of cayenne pepper (I used chilli pepper)

a small piece of ginger, grated (I used baking ginger, from a jar)

2 tablespoons coriander (I used some from a jar)

Method

Fry the onion for about 5 minutes in a frying pan with some oil.

Add the tomatoes and spices. Stir and then add the chick peas and some salt and pepper.

Let this stew for about 10 minutes, stir occasionally.

Serve with carrot salad (or boiled carrot) and naan bread.

Results

This turned out to be just right. At first it doesn’t seem very spicy but something lingers in the mouth… The ginger and tomato make this dish a little sweet, but this is counteracted by the spices. The carrot and naan bread were good accompaniments. My son and I loved this simple recipe!