This quick and easy chickpea curry is inspired by my student years, during which I often opted for plants over meat to cut costs and learned a lot about flavour in the process. This is a wonderful side-dish, but you can easily have it as your main meal with some rice or naan.
Step 1
Chop, mash or finely grate your garlic and ginger, and place in a bowl with a splash of water.
Step 2
Add the oil to the pan and turn the heat up to medium before adding your cloves. Fry these until they start to make little popping noises, then add your onion. (I like to add in a little butter with the onion, but you don't have to).
Step 3
Turn down the heat and gently fry your onions for 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly to ensure they don't burn. Add in your sliced chilli near the end as I find chilli is more prone to burning.
Step 4
Once the onions have softened and started to brown a little at the edges, add your powdered spices and coat the onions with them. Let them cook for roughly 30 seconds, while stirring.
Step 5
Add your ginger, garlic and water mixture. There should be enough water to make a FSSS sound as it hits the pan, accompanied by a lovely aroma and perhaps a (small) plume of steam. Stir and fry for a further 30 seconds.
Step 6
Add your tin of tomatoes. If, like me, you've opted for tinned plum tomatoes (which I recommend over tinned chopped tomatoes for flavour), simply break these up with a spoon while cooking.
Maintaining a low heat, let all of this reduce for 10 minutes or so. As always, stir occasionally to ensure nothing sticks.
Step 7
Once the excess water has evaporated from your masala and the acidity of the tomatoes has started to wane, fill your empty tomato can about 3/4 of the way with water and add that along with your chickpeas, stock, and most of your coriander.
Step 8
Turn up the heat and wait for your curry to start to boil, then turn the heat down to low. Partially cover the pan/pot, and leave it to simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the chickpeas are tender. As this is a meat-free dish and tinned chickpeas are already cooked, you can relax and prioritise cooking to your desired consistency.
Step 9
Sprinkle on your garam masala and the rest of your corriander before serving, and enjoy.
