- Today I'm gonna show you how to make an incredible chickpea curry. Chickpeas are coated in a generous blend of spices and aromatics,
simmered until creamy, and finished with greens and fresh herbs. We're gonna get started
with the aromatics. (tray clattering) Wow, that was heavy. (film reel beeping) We'll finely dice a large onion, doesn't matter if it's yellow or red. We're also gonna mince
up six garlic cloves, and take a knob of
ginger, about two inches. Grate that up. And dice a Serrano
pepper, or two, or three. This is where you can really moderate the heat of this curry. If you tend towards the baby
mouth side of the spectrum, go ahead and use one. And if you're off the scale,
like a baby, baby mouth, maybe take out the membranes from these. They will get moderated in the curry so it's not gonna be super spicy. Try not to just directly
inhale it like I did just now. What I do recommend is immediately
going to wash your hands. Soap it up. We are left with the task of putting this into our bowl and I have
just washed my hands. I feel like I have done this before and yet I have not learned my lesson, but that's why I'm here. So you can learn my lessons
and not repeat them. I don't think I mentioned this yet but this is an Indian chickpea curry. So these four ingredients,
the onions, ginger, garlic, green chilies are what I call the holy quaternity of Indian cooking. They create the flavor base for so many amazing Indian recipes, and that's how my mom taught
me how to make my recipes. And moms are never wrong. And if you're wondering, are we making a chana masala, Nisha? No, we are not. Although I do love that. This is more of a creamy
version with greens, some different spices and
it's pretty quick to make. We also need two Roma tomatoes. I'm pretty impressed I caught that. This is about one half pound
or eight ounces of tomatoes. I like to cut the tomatoes pretty finely so they melt into the curry. And if tomatoes are truly
horrible where you live right now because it's winter, you can use half of a 14 ounce can of
diced or crushed tomatoes. (water spraying) And because this is an Indian curry, we of course needs some spices. I've got my Indian masala dabba here, and the two whole spices
we're gonna use today are cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Want a heaping teaspoon of the cumin seeds and two teaspoons of the coriander seeds. I'm also gonna use some
curry leaves in this recipe. So if you're thinking, I don't have those, I'm not gonna make this recipe, bye, stay 'cause they're optional. But if you have an Indian grocery store, I highly recommend seeking
fresh curry leaves out. They are low-key a superstar ingredient. Not low-key for Indian people 'cause we already know they're amazing, but low-key for everybody else who might not be familiar with them. Smells so good. For this recipe, I'm gonna use
maybe 15 fresh curry leaves. They obviously vary in size, so if yours are really
large, you can use less. And if they're really
small, you can use more. And for our ground spices, we're using some pretty common
spices that you should have at home, or easy to find
at any grocery store. A teaspoon of ground coriander. A teaspoon and a half of curry powder. A half teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Quarter teaspoon of turmeric. And a half teaspoon of
freshly graded nutmeg. (grater scraping) Everything that needs
to be prepped is ready. So I'm gonna grab my tiny
stove and get to cooking. Medium high heat. Pro tip, if you have a stainless steel pan and you feel like the
food sticks too much, let the pan heat up dry for
a minute and a half or two. Then add your oil and let that heat up for a little bit and your
food will stick a lot less. We're gonna add two tablespoons of oil. This is avocado oil. And we'll add in our
cumin and coriander seeds. What we're doing is
toasting our spices in oil. This is called blooming. And the reason I like to do this is because spices are fat soluble. So you're gonna unlock
lots of hidden aromas and flavors when you toast
them in a fat source. This shouldn't take long. You just wanna get them
a few shades darker and it'll smell really aromatic. Now for our curry leaves,
if you're using fresh, have your lid handy 'cause
these will sputter up. (pan sizzling) That's because there's a lot
of moisture in the leaves so they're interacting with the hot oil. And this really only
needs like 20 seconds, so don't do it for too long. (pan sizzling) If you're using dried curry
leaves, this will not happen. So don't worry. Now we're gonna add in our onions, hit them with a little salt, and show you what it looks like so far. Because we diced those
onions pretty finely, they won't take too long
to get some color on them. Maybe five minutes. If you feel like things are
starting to get a little toasty, maybe too toasty, add a
splash of water to the glaze. (pan sizzling) Time for our other aromatics. The jar, jarlic. (giggling) (film reel beeping) The garlic, ginger, and green chilies. Oh, this is when the Serrano
peppers are activated. You'll know. Your nostrils and your
throat pipe, you'll know. I don't know what the medical
term is for a throat pipe. Larynx? (film reel beeping) Now we are ready to add tomato paste, two tablespoons of this,
and those ground spices. You wanna stir vigorously now, otherwise the spices will burn. (coughing) This is where you might
sneeze a little bit. And we have some stuff
sticking to the bottom, so let's add in our water. You wanna stir this pretty
vigorously for maybe 90 seconds 'cause now we're gonna
add in our tomatoes. Tomatoes need about five minutes. So in the meantime, I'm
gonna drain our chickpeas. (upbeat music) And this is pretty much
a perfect recipe to me. It's got so much flavor,
it's relatively easy to make. It's got protein, fat, fiber, even greens. Honestly, the only
thing that would make it even more perfect is if
it were a 30 minute meal. But good Indian food requires
this layering of flavors and you can't rush that process. You can't just dump some curry powder into a soup pot and call it a curry. I'm sure you've seen those recipes online. We're not doing that. We wanna build an actually super
flavorful, delicious curry. So once it's nicely softened like this, that's when you add the
rest of the ingredients. Chickpeas, just toss to coat. I'm just using canned chickpeas today 'cause I wanna keep
things relatively quick. But if you're the kind of
person who makes their own beans from scratch, more power to you. This will be even more delicious. Now we're gonna add our coconut milk. This is what makes this
curry creamy and velvety. Wow, it is so beautiful
already, I have to show you. Woo. We're also gonna add a very
untraditional ingredient. Tahini, what the heck is this
Middle Eastern sesame paste doing in my Indian curry? It's gonna add an
additional layer of richness and a subtle nuttiness, but
you're not gonna taste tahini. It's just gonna be this kind
of subtly hidden ingredient. And this is similar to my red lentil curry that
I know a lot of you love, where I use almond butter. Again, you don't taste the almond butter, but it does add that noticeable richness. And a half cup of water
so it's not too thick. Once she's simmering,
you're gonna cover it and simmer for 15 to 20 ish minutes. I forgot an important step, salt. I was supposed to add
it with the tomatoes. I didn't. We're gonna add it now. And black pepper. It's going to activate the
curcumin in the turmeric. Stir that in. (lid clattering) Oh, also, one more thing. Sugar, just a tiny bit to
balance everything out. You can use any sugar. I'm using coconut sugar today
and just a half teaspoon. Normally I would've added the
sugar with the coconut milk. All right, while this simmers,
we're gonna do a few things. First, we're gonna make some
rice to serve with the curry. I like using my instant pot for this because it is very hands-off. (upbeat music) As I mentioned, we've got
some greens in this curry. I am using Swiss chard today. It is one of those vegetables
that's so good for you that I kind of forget
to eat most of the time. So this is a great way
to get it into your diet, get it into your kids' diets, get it into your picky partners' diets. I'm pointing over here 'cause my picky partner Max is
behind the camera over there. First we're gonna wash it and
then we'll finely chop it up. You can make this curry with any greens. So if you wanna skip the
chard, you can use kale. You can use pre-bagged baby
spinach or baby kale too. We've got some fresh
herbs, cilantro and mint. And these will be used as
a finishing ingredient. I'm not measuring these, but I'd say a large handful of each. And if you only have
one or the other herb, that's totally fine too. (chopping) All right, it's been about 20 minutes. I'm gonna add in our greens. The greens need to simmer
for about five minutes. If you're using something
more tender like baby spinach, it probably just needs a minute or two. Last couple things. We're gonna add two
teaspoons of garam masala once the greens have wilted. Garam masala is often
used as a finishing spice like this, and it adds
this incredible, bold, slightly sweet, warm flavor. I usually like to add
a little more salt now because once you add the
greens, they start to draw out some of the salt
that's already in there. Little bit of lemon juice
to brighten everything. And our cilantro and mint. Yum, this looks so good. Wow. I can't tell you how good it smells. When I was growing up,
people used to make fun of me 'cause my house smelled like curry. And honestly, now I'm just
like, y'all are stupid. Curry smells delicious. And you would be so lucky if
your house could smell like it. I wanna live in this. Time for a taste test. Would you look at this? It's so beautiful. It's creamy. It's got that nice green color from the herbs and the greens. (upbeat music) It's warming, it's
comforting, it's creamy. It's got a little freshness from the mint. And if you want even more
delicious vegan Indian recipes, I've got a short playlist
for you right here. Bye-bye. Tomatoes.
