Little Foodies Easy Take on Madhur's Easy Chickpea and Potato Curry

I totally understand the thinking that Indian cooking can be hard work but this really is easy and well worth it. I am a total tinker in the kitchen so it was hard having to write things down as I went. All I can say is I've made this with more of one thing and less of another, without fresh coriander, even without the onion, it still tasted great.

I have too many spices (nah, you can never have enough!). People also tend to give me spices. One of my husbands colleagues very kindly gave me a bag of spices last week (Thank you C), we don't even know what some of them are, should be fun giving them a try though. I should sort through my rather large collection and throw some away. Better still make some spice blends and give them as Happy Spring gifts.

If you'd like to have a little dry powder habit (that's legal) you can shop online at the following places.

Natco are suppliers of spices, condiments & almost everything you'd need to cook Indian food.
Click Natco to shop online.
Seasoned Pioneers sell a good range of seasonings and spices. All of their blends are made by hand, in house using traditional production techniques and genuine recipes .
Click Seasoned Pioneers to shop online.
Wing Yip stores are great fun to go and visit, again with almost everything you could possibly want to make Asian food. Bottles & Jars, Tins & Dry Goods, Fresh Foods, Frozen Foods, they even sell cooking equipment, crockery and cutlery. They don't have so much choice online but that's probably a good thing.
Click Wing Yip to shop online.

LittleFoodies Easy Take on Madhur's Easy Chickpea Curry
Gives 4-6 servings.
The inspiration is from Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible pg187 Easy Chickpea Curry. It's so tasty and comforting and just what I needed one evening last weekend. It does have quite a kick which you could tone down by putting less chilli and cayenne in. To adjust it for the palates of LittleFoodies I add lots of plain yogurt to theirs and serve with plenty of rice.

Ingredients:
650g peeled potatoes cut roughly into chunks (about 2cm)
3 small onions (about 250g before peeling) finely chopped
2 tins of chickpeas in water 410g (2 x 240g net drained weight) EDIT **
500ml of boiling water
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Handful of fresh coriander
4 large cloves garlic
4 smallish tomatoes (about 250g)
3 teaspoons ready chopped ginger in sunflower oil from a jar (I used Barts you can use fresh)
2 teaspoons of ready chopped chilli in vinegar from a jar (I used Watirose cooks ingredients, you could use fresh as Madhur suggests or dried I just had these to hand.)
4 bay leaves
one cinammon stick or a few pieces of cassia bark
5 cardamon pods (I put 10 in this time it was too many!!)
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
pinch of salt
First prepare the spices, this feels like the daunting bit to me. I start by measuring all of the ground spices in to one container - that way I know what I'm working with. So...

In a bowl measure the ground coriander. ground cumin, ground turmeric, cayenne pepper and salt. Put to one side.
Chop the tomatoes.
In a blender add the chopped tomatoes, garlic, ginger, chillies, fresh coriander, the ground spices and 10 tablesoons of water. Blitz well until the tomatoes & garlic are in tiny pieces.
Heat the oil in a pan, then add the bay leaves, cardamon pods & cassia or cinammon.
After about 20 seconds add the onions and potatoes. Fry for about 5 minutes.
Add the paste from the blender and keep at high temperature for a minute or two stirring every10 seconds or so to avoid it sticking on the bottom.
Cover and turn the heat down to low and cook for about 5 minutes. Stir every minute or so.
Add the chickpeas and 500ml water. Give it a good stir to mix it all up.
Bring to the boil and then reduce heat, cover and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes.
Make sure potatoes are cooked and it's ready to eat. Yummy!