Chickpea curry is a mildly spiced thick curry made to be eaten in breakfast with naan, parathas or puris. It is also a part of a big Desi Brunch set up which includes:
Sooji ka halwa (semolina pudding)Puris (fried flat breads)Aloo ki tarkari (potato curry)
It’s the BEST vegetarian brunch from the lands of South Asia and if you aren’t sold yet, you can also just try the chickpea curry on its own with a paratha.
Easy steps to make chickpea curry
Using red lentils as a thickening agent.
This recipe is super popular, so its befitting that there are tonnnnns of different versions of a chickpea curry online. This recipe is the one that pairs BEST with parathey and puri. Some recipes use corn flour as thickening agent for the curry. I personally don’t enjoy the texture or effect that cornflour brings to this recipe. So, instead I use red lentils to add a little body to the curry. And it goes so well with all the other flavors that it feels like it was always meant to be. So I soak a little red lentils on the side and begin preparing my curry base.
Making the curry base
It starts with sliced onions in oil with coriander seeds. Once the onion turn golden brown, add in your usually curry base ingredients. There’s some chopped tomatoes, ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder, salt and red chili powder. Saute for about 2 mins just to temper the spices and get rid of any rawness in there.
Cover up the pot at low flame for about 10 mins. This is only to soften the tomatoes slightly and cook the onions. Doesn’t need to be cooked all the way through. Once your curry base looks like this, you are ready to move on to the next step.
Adding lentils
Adding in the soaked lentils with some water and covering it up. Again, I am using a very small quantity of lentils here, just to give the curry some body. Cover the pot and cook for about 20 mins or so.
After 20 mins, your lentils would have cooked all the way to give you a nice curry base.
Adding chickpeas
Now we add a little tangy element and chickpeas. To add that tangy-ness, you can either use mango powder or tamarind pulp. Both work just fine. I used tamarind pulp water here. For chickpeas, ideally this curry is made with the small white chickpeas, but of course I didn’t have any at hand and I used the bigger ones instead. Add the boiled chickpeas and mango powder or tamarind pulp in the curry. Let it cook for 5 mins. And its ready. You can adjust how thick or thin you want to keep the gravy. Finish it off with sprinkling some garam masala powder and chat masala powder on top with some coriander and serve hot with that gorgeous puris!
Alternates, Fixes and remixes
Like I mentioned above you can use mango powder instead of tamarind water or pulpIf your curry is to thick, you can always add more water to get the desired consistency you want. Adjust the seasoning slightly if you are going to add more water.This curry freezes very well! And also survives for up to 5 days in the fridge.For mild variations, try adding fennel seeds and curry leaves to the onions while frying.
