For this recipe, pressure-cooked chickpeas work really well.
This idea was inspired by the NYT Cooking, but whereas they suggest canned chickpeas, I thought pressure-cooked ones would work better as I can decide how soft they should be. This time, I also forgot the ginger but it was delicious anyway. I also used crushed tomatoes instead of whole, as I didn’t have any. I’ll try to stick to those next time, as it might give a better structure.
Cook 1/2 pack of chickpeas (1 cup) with 4 cups of water, 1-2 cloves of garlic, 2tsp of salt. High pressure for 45 min. No soaking.
Served with Naan or rice, with a side of raita or cucumber salad
Ingredients
- Chickpeas (2 cans or t cook 250g dried chickpeas)
- Bay leaf (1, optional)
- Butter (about 50g)
- Onion finely sliced (1 large)
- Garlic grated or crushed (4 cloves)
- Ginger grated or chopped (1 Tbsp)
- Cumin powder (2 Tbsp)
- Sweet paprika (2 Tbsp)
- Garam masala (2 Tbsp)
- Cinnamon stick (1 small)
- Whole plum canned tomatoes (2 cans)
- Coconut milk (1 can = about 400ml)
- Coriander leaves, chopped including tender stems (1 bunch)
Preparation
- Cook the chickpeas. Ideally, to pressure-cook chickpeas, pre-soak for 8 hours so it takes only 15 pressure cooking. If not, it takes 40 minutes to pressure cook from totally dried peas and that is about the time you’ll need to cook the rest, but don’t forget the time the pressure needs to build… better start early! Add 1 garlic clove, 1 bay leaf (optional) and 1 tsp salt to cook the chickpeas.
- Melt butter in a pot over medium heat. Add onion and some salt; cook for about 20 minutes over medium heat, they should be really soft without burning the butter.
- Stir in garlic and ginger. Add cumin, paprika, garam masala and cinnamon stick.
- Add tomatoes with their juices. Smash the tomatoes. Stir in coconut milk and salt. Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add the chickpeas and simmer for 10 more minutes.
- Serve spooned over white rice, and topped with coriander.
- Raita and oven-roasted aubergines are also great.