April recipe: Curried chick peas with fried bananas
Many beans and pulses seem to work particularly well in spicy dishes, and this dish is a good example. It's sweet and spicy without being especially hot, and you can vary the spices to suit taste and availability. I use frozen chopped tomatoes (almost the last thing left from last year's garden produce by the time we get round to April), but tinned tomatoes will also work. Incidentally, it happens to be a vegan dish.
Curried chick peas (serves 2)
4 oz (approx 100 g) dried chick peas
Half a small onion
0.25 teaspoon (0.25 x 5 ml spoon) ground cumin
0.25 teaspoon (0.25 x 5 ml spoon) ground coriander
0.25 teaspoon (0.25 x 5 ml spoon) ground ginger
0.25 teaspoon (0.25 x 5 ml spoon) turmeric
0.25 teaspoon (0.25 x 5 ml spoon) garam masala
Soak the chick peas in cold water overnight. If you don't have time to do this, put them in a pan with plenty of cold water, bring to the boil, remove from the heat and soak for one hour.
Rinse three or four times, put in a saucepan and cover with cold water, bring to boil, and simmer for about 1 hour 15 minutes until the chick peas are tender. (Or you could use tinned chick peas, in which case you will need about 8 oz. Read the instructions to see if you have to do any preparation).
Peel and chop the onion.
Fry onion gently in oil until soft and starting to turn golden.
Stir in spices.
Add the cooked chick peas and enough of their cooking liquid to about half-cover them.
Cover the pan and simmer for around 15 minutes while you cook the fried bananas to go with them (see below).
Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with chopped parsley. Serve with rice, and fried bananas or a salad.
Fried spiced bananas and tomatoes (serves 2)
Half a large onion
1 clove garlic
1 piece of root ginger, about 1” (about 2.5 cm) cube
4 oz (approx 100 g) tomatoes
2 bananas
0.5 teaspoon (0.5 x 5 ml spoon) turmeric
Peel and chop the onion.
Peel and shred the root ginger.
Peel and crush the garlic clove.
Peel and slice the bananas.
Chop the tomatoes (you can peel them if you like, I never do).
Fry the onion and ginger in oil until the onion is soft and beginning to turn golden.
Stir in the garlic and tomatoes and fry gently for 1-2 minutes.
Add the sliced bananas and the turmeric, season with salt.
Fry gently another 2-3 minutes until the banana is soft.
Serve with curried chick peas (above) and rice.
7 comments:
The recipe sounds wonderful - and doable. I think I''ll be trying this one! (And thanks for the teaspoon/ML translations. Sometimes my math gets wonky. Could burn my tongue. *g* )fasjm
Constance - all my recipes are doable, they are all things I cook routinely. Thanks for reminding me that I translated the teaspoons but forgot the metric translation for ounces! Have remedied that now.
One way of testing an unfamiliar recipe is to halve the spice content, then taste it, then add more if you want.
I'm definitely a 'season as you go' type of cook. Most recipes are too salty for me, so I omit the salt and cautiously add it back in if needed.
Downside of new recipes is I have to mail order all my 'foreign' spices. Wyoming isn't exactly a hotbed of culinary ingredients!
(Is it me, or are the word verifications getting harder to read?)
My receipes are so not doable. I don't use any measurements, I just throw things together, and the rest is experience. :)
Constance - sounds a little like Britain 20 years ago, when ground mixed spice appeared for a month at Christmas and that was it :-)
Yes, I thought the word verifications were getting harder to read, so it's not just you.
Gabriele - but they are very do-able for you.
Wow! That's an interesting receipe! How did you come up with it?
Good question. I think it's a modifed version of an Indian recipe I came across somewhere.
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