Recipe: Easy, Tasty Chickpea Curry

Here's a simple curry that can stay vegetarian (vegan even) or, with the simple addition of some shrimp or chicken, make a fine dish for the carnivore. The most important thing is that this delicious curry is built largely from your canned goods stash: coconut milk, tinned chickpeas and tomatoes. Just add a few fresh veg, some spices and Bob's your uncle!

This curry is extremely versatile. For example, sharp eyed readers may have noticed that while this recipe is called chickpea curry, there are no chickpeas in the version in the photo. That's because I was inexplicably out of canned chickpeas when I made this late last night! No worries - it's still really good.

As mentioned, you can add pieces meat or fish or seafood towards the end of the final simmer for a non-vegetarian version. The vegetables are also flexible, although I would keep the potatoes as their starch helps to thicken and silken the sauce. Vegans can eliminate the fish sauce and substitute agave for the honey.

Chickpea Curry
(aka The Hippie Curry)

This recipe came to my family over 20 years ago from a Zen farm in Marin County, CA. You can't get much more hippie than that!

serves 4-6

1 clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)
2 cups sliced potatoes
2 cups sliced carrots
2 cups cauliflower florets
1 14-ounce can chopped tomatoes
1 14-ounce can coconut milk
1 14-ounce can chickpeas
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce (or vegan fish sauce)
1 tablespoon honey (or agave syrup, for a vegan adaptation)
1/4 cup slivered basil leaves, plus small whole leaves for garnish

In a mortar, grind the garlic, peppercorns and coriander seeds into a paste. (Alternatively, finely chop the garlic with ground versions of the peppercorns and coriander.)

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven. Fry garlic mixture until fragrant. Add curry powder and fry a little longer to release flavors.

Add stock, potatoes and carrots and bring to a gentle simmer. After about five minutes, add the cauliflower, tomatoes, coconut milk, chickpeas, soy and fish sauces and honey. Bring to a gentle simmer and continue cooking until the vegetables are done and the sauce has begun to thicken.

Taste for seasonings and add additional soy sauce or honey as needed. You may want to add more heat via hot chile paste if your curry powder wasn't hot enough.

Remove from heat and stir in the basil. Serve over rice with the additional basil on top as a garnish.

(Images: Dana Velden)

Comments (14)

Wow - looks tasty... will try this weekend - EXCEPT don't forget to omit the fish sauce to make this Veggie/Vegan.

Any suggestions on what to replace it with? Mirin maybe?

Oh neat!
I had just remarked about making a veggie curry because I had gone over board on produce! To make it vegan, I don't add the fish sauce or honey, and I use veggie stock, or even just water.
I also use sweet potatoes instead of white, and I just have to put zuccinni in it! Oh, and peas & spinach! I, too, didn't have any chick peas on hand, so I used black beans.

You can the before & afters of my veggie curry here!

http://queenofthefall.blogspot.com/2010/10/picture-post.html

you can add just a small splash of rice vinegar to kind of replace the fish sauce a bit, and adjust by adding some extra spices.

Hi,

I'm not a fan of coconut milk (its the smell...), what would be a good substitute? I can't imagine using 14oz of cream, perhaps regular milk?

Thanks!

@Sepehri

When my mom makes curry, she substitutes coconut milk with regular milk and it hasn't made me miss the richness of the milk flavor at all. Perhaps use whole milk.

This looks really, really good. Thanks for sharing!

I do adore the chickpea, and in a curry, it's one of my favorite meatless meals.

Sepehri: You can also just use more stock and simmer the potatoes a little longer. They should help to thicken the sauce. missmimichi's whole milk idea sounds good, too.

Stay tuned for a vegetarian/vegan fish sauce recipe!

I made this last night and it was delicious! Took a bit for the carrots to cook all the way through, but that's fine. Thanks for sharing! Love this site!

fish sauce is super salty. so adjusting the other spices, esp salt should get you there!

as for the coconut milk. i agree that regular heavy milk would likely work but the dish will severely drop in nutritional value. i'd be surprised if you noticed the flavor of coconut milk at all given all the spices.

Maybe a dumb question, but you do rinse the chickpeas first, right? Or does the can goo help thicken the curry?

Um, mirin and/or vinegar are not substitutes for fish sauce. You will miss umami. Try soaking kombu in water (cold or warm) and that will give your curry an umami boost (savory taste.)

This was so good! I made a vegetarian version. I used all of the above. Although I didn't have vegetarian fish sauce so I used vegetarian stir fry sauce which does the job. I also used spinach, corn agave syrup & some onion. I used light coconut milk. Very tasty & thank you !