This is one easy chickpea (channa) curry, you don’t have to go through the hassle of chopping onions or scraping coconut here. The chickpeas themselves are used as a thickening agent, giving this curry a nice creamy texture. So getting started…
Soak a few handfuls of chickpeas overnight in water, or if you are thinking of making them for dinner, then you will have to soak them in the afternoon. After they have soaked for 6 hours or more, drain the water and pressure cook the chickpeas with clean water and a little salt. Here you see, they have been cooked in a pressure cooker.
Now roughly chop up a few tomatoes (5 to 6 medium sized ones) and grind them to a pulp without adding water as seen in the picture.
Heat a little oil in a pan, and throw in some cumin (jeera) seeds. Let them crackle and give out a nice jeera smell…
Pour in the tomato puree and cover the pan, let this tomato puree cook on low heat for 10 to 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, take little chickpeas in the mixie, add their own water to it (the water leftover in the pressure cooker). Grind it to a paste…
Here is the creamy chickpea pulp…
Now check your tomato puree, it will look like this. Put in a little sugar (bout a teaspoon or two depending on your taste) and mix it up, this is to remove the acrid taste. Now add necessary amount of salt. Taste the sauce, it should have a mildly sweet flavour.
Dump in the chickpeas and sprinkle garam masala on top, cover and cook for a few minutes, till the garam masala is infused into the curry and the whole things starts giving off a great smell.
Drop in the chickpea pulp and slowly mix it into the curry to make it creamy… taste to adjust the salt.
That’s it, this wonderfully easy and slightly sweet chickpea curry is perfect for poori’s and chapathi’s. Because of the sugar, this dish has a distinctive tikka masala taste… like those sweet and creamy north Indian dishes. Women and girls will love this, that’s what I’ve noticed… men tend to over think and grumble, they can’t conceive of a curry that does not have the usual onion/chillie & coriander powders/ginger&garlic spices that they are used to. But, I love this… I’ve made it quite often and it really makes a wonderfully happy breakfast with poori’s. So give it a try and see for yourselves…
Wow! i should make this rightaway now that I have my own kitchen and hearth.
Thanks, man.
Hope you've been happy and joyous.
Joy always,
Susan
Hi there… that made me smile. I love ancient sounding words like hearth. Well, enjoy your cooking and looking forward to seeing your hearth someday. Take care…
Hey Karen, just made this today. It has come out rather well 🙂
Joy always,
Susan
Hey, that's nice… hope it did not disappoint you guys.