10 minute chickpea curry

Don't you think this meal looks like an alien or maybe my funny valentine?



When it's too hot to cook...just cheat. A week of temperatures over 38 degrees (that's 100 degrees F to the rest of you) doesn't inspire much cooking, but still I have trouble with the whole just salad for dinner thing, so I cooked, just a little. It is a little Americany in it's combination of mixing two pre-packaged ingredients together but bear with me, it is more natural and has a lot of flavour. The two ingredients are chickpeas in a can - simple, and a jar (well, part of a jar) of Indian chutney. (see below for more on my love of these) Introducing...

The Ten Minute Curry!

Heat 3 heaped tablespoons of brinjal (eggplant) chutney in a saucepan and tip in 1 drained can of chickpeas. Cook, stirring occassionally, for about 10 minutes. Add a little water / liquid from the chickpea can if it gets a little burny.

Serve with salad and a raita made from 1 c unsweetened yoghurt, 1/2 smallish cucumber, cubed, and some chopped fresh mint or a pinch of dill.


Pickles!
I love buying these from local Indian/Asian stores: India knows chutneys! My favourites are lime pickle, mango chutney and brinjal (eggplant)pickle. They have lots of spices that you don't have to prepare yourself, you can read all the ingredients - all real things, not numbers! One of the real ingredients though is sugar, which I try not to cook with much these days, so remember that. But for the every now and again meal, brilliant!

Here are some other ways I like to use these pickles:

- Salad dressing with a kick: Get a nice big teaspoonful (chop any big chunks up finely), mix with 1/4 olive oil.

- Pizza spread: Use in place of tomato paste (a thin spear only) for exotic pizzas. Then just top base with some cheese and one or two toppings like zucchini, pumpkin, whatever.

- as a rub for roast veggies: Mix a tablespoon of pickle with some olive oil in a bowl, tip over your roasting pan of chopped veggies ready to go into the oven. Rub the pickly-oil all over the veg using your (gloved) hands. Roast, keeping an eye on them for burning bits. So yum.

- Dip: Mix with yoghurt for an easy dip that might really impress people (little do they know!). Serve with veg crudites or what you will.

Harira (a Moroccan Soup)

When we visited Luc's sister in Bordeaux, she took us to the markets and a few Moroccan stores nearby. We bought some yummy food for dinner and I also grabbed a couple of packets of soup in case I needed a standby vegetarian meal on my trip. The soup was Harira, a dish I've since learned is traditionally served after a long day's fast during the month of Ramadan. I certainly wasn't fasting in France and ate some truly delicious meals but surprisingly, the packet soup compared favourably!

I made this yesterday for the first time - the recipe a combination of the packet ingredients I remembered, ingredients we had in the house and I also found this recipe in one of my favourite cookbooks - so I'll give you that version with my changes.

Harira
from World Vegetarian Classics by Celia Brooks Brown

Ingredients:
(longish list, yeah, but the soup is easy and quite quick to make!)

2 T olive oil
2 onions (I added leek too as it needed to be used and it flavours soups so well)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 t freshly grated ginger
1 T paprika (I also added about 1t Korean chile powder because it has a great warmth and moreish quality)
1 t cumin seeds
600g / 1 lb 5 oz whole tomatoes / about 5 plump vine-ripened tomatoes
2 c / 500ml / 16 fl oz boiling water
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1x 400g / 14 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 T chopped, fresh parsley
3 T chopped, fresh coriander (cilantro)
3 T chopped celery leaves
1 T fresh lemon juice
1 T tomato puree
2 T plain flour, slackened with 3 T cold water
1/3 c / 40g / 2.6 oz vermicelli
3 fresh free-range eggs (optional)
Extra virgin olive oil, to serve

Serves 4-6


Method:

Heat oil in a big saucepan with a lid. Add the onions and fry until translucent, then add the garlic, ginger, paprika and cumin seeds. Fry briefly until fragrant, then add the chopped tomatoes and cook until somewhat softened. Puree this mixture with handheld mixer or in a food processor or blender. Return the pureed mixture to saucepan, add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the chickpeas, herbs, lemon juice and tomato puree. Bring to the boil and simmer 2-5 minutes. Stir in the flour mixture to thicken the soup. Add the vermicelli and simmer for a further 5 minutes. If using eggs, break these in now and stir to break them up. Leave on heat till whites have set (when the white turns white). Serve each bowl with a drizzle of olive oil over the surface. (I used an egg with the packet version but not with yesterday's one, pictured. Both versions were delish!)

NB: some versions I have seen (on how-to videos, etc) cook this for about an hour all up. That probably helps the flavours develop really well but the colour is not as nice - more end of Autumn than the nice red colour you can have with this one. But choose what kind of flavour you like - I loved the freshness of this one.