Easy Curried Chick Pea and Vegetable Stew
Written by Mike Cheliak on October 9, 2009 – 6:33 pm -The one thing you will start doing as you begin exploring spices and different cultural cuisines is experimenting with spices. Curry for instance is a very diverse spice mixture. It varies from region to region, from country to country and even from family to family.
Curry is all about your preferences, spicier, more aromatic or more savoury and the list goes on. Most recipes of curry powder usually include coriander, turmeric, cumin, and fenugreek in their blends. Depending on the recipe, additional ingredients such as ginger, garlic, fennel seed, cinnamon, clove, mustard seed, green cardamom, black cardamom, mace, nutmeg, red pepper, long pepper, and black pepper may also be added.
If you don’t feel quite that adventurous, just go to your local East Indian or Asian Grocer and ask for a good curry blend based on your preference. If that fails, you can find a decent curry in most grocery stores. You might even find a decent imported curry powder in some grocery International sections.
INGREDIENTS
14 ounce can of Chick Peas (Rinsed)
2 TBLSP oil
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
1 cup coarsely chopped carrots
1 cup coarsely chopped celery
1 finely diced hot Asian Chile Pepper (Asian food market – very hot! And optional)
2 cloves minced garlic
2 TBLSP chopped fresh ginger
3 TBLSP Hot Curry Powder (or your own curried spice mix)
1 20 ounce can of diced tomatoes (no salt added)
1 cup vegetable stock
METHOD
Heat the oil over medium heat in a med-large sauce pan. Add the onion, carrots and celery and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add the hot pepper, garlic and ginger and continue to sweat the mixture for another 2 minutes. Add the curry powder and mix very well. Continue to heat and stir constantly so the curry becomes very aromatic. Add the vegetable stock and mix to loosen the veggies and spices. Add the chick peas and the diced tomatoes.
Cover and simmer for at least 45 minutes. At this point, you can adjust the salt seasoning if needed. I always let this sit off the heat for a little while to let the flavours mingle. I store this in the fridge in a glass container with a lock top. It lasts for at least a week unless you eat it all!
Serve with an aromatic Basmati rice (add some whole cardamom seeds and cloves to the water when you are cooking it. Remove the seeds and cloves after cooking…YUMMO!
In happiness and health as always!
Mike C.
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