Chickpeas are widely used legume in many cuisines across the world. Chickpeas are also known as Garbanzo beans or Egyptian peas. At my home, we call it as ‘ Kabuli Chana’ while it is known as ‘Chole’ in northern part of India. Chickpeas are high in protein and used in variety of recipes – you can use it in salad, make a dip or curry or Indian chaat and many other recipes using chickpeas.

My favourite recipe is chickpea curry and love to enjoy it with hot Jeera (cumin) rice. I often make this curry using my favourite coconut-onion paste. I always prefer coconut based gravies and find it more flavourful than tomato based gravies. Roasted coconut and onions grounded to fine thick paste gives amazing flavours to any gravy based dish. Usually, I prepare this paste in advance and freeze it. Then use the paste, whenever you want.

This curry goes well with plain rice or pulav or even with simple jeera rice. Also, one can pair it with hot puris. I try to avoid deep fried stuff so not a fan of puri. Instead, I’ll prefer with chapati or naan.

So, let’s checkout my recipe in this post 😊. I always use raw chickpea which I soak overnight and then boil it. To make this simple one can use canned chickpeas. But home soaked and boiled chickpea tastes much better than canned version. So choice is yours either home cooked or canned chickpeas 😜

Ingredients:

Following proportion is for 2-3 people

1/2 cup chickpea

1 medium sized red onion

4-5 garlic cloves

1 tbsp ginger paste

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 bay leaves

1 black cardamom

3-4 cloves

1/2 cup coconut-onion paste

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp kashmiri chilli powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

1&1/2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp tamarind pulp

1 tsp garam masala powder

1 tbsp oil

salt as per taste

Water for cooking

Freshly chopped coriander

Method:

Soak chickpeas overnight or at least for 5-6 hours. Add salt to soaked chickpeas and pressure cook it for 4-5 whistles. Chickpeas should be cooked thoroughly and should be soft. In case using canned chickpeas, you can skip this step. While chickpeas are cooking, you can make a coconut gravy base. Use shredded coconut and chopped onions in 1:1 ratio. Oil fry it on medium flame until cooked and turned brown. Grind it into fine, thick paste. We’ll use only 1/2 cup of this and remaining you can freeze it for next recipe.

On a hot pan add oil. And once oil is hot, add cumin seeds, bay leaves, cardamom and cloves.

Stir these whole spices, they’ll release aroma in few seconds. Next add finely chopped onions into the pan. Fry onions on medium-high flame. Add chopped garlic and ginger paste into it. Mix it well and keep stirring occasionally while it is cooking. Once onion turns translucent, add powdered spices (except garam masala). Keep cooking so that rawness of spices goes away. Add little water to ensure spices won’t get burnt.

Once spices are thoroughly cooked with onions, add cooked chickpeas along with water. Let chickpeas cook for few minutes and then add coconut paste. Mix well and let it cook on high flame until oil starts releasing from the sides of pan. Add diluted tamarind pulp along with garam masala and let it cook for few more minutes.

You can adjust water as per desired consistency. I prefer it semi thick so cooked it without lid on.

Finally garnish it with freshly chopped coriander. Chickpea curry is ready to serve. You can remove whole spices like bay leaves, cardamom and cloves before serving.

I usually make this way but there are few modifications you would love to try. You can add chopped tomatoes or boiled potatoes into the gravy. Potatoes goes well with this chickpeas curry.

Enjoy it with your favourite accompaniment 😀 I hope you like this recipe and would love to try it out !!