After gorging ourselves on Italian style eggplant tomato dishes all summer long, we love this recipe that uses up some late summer garden crops! We particularly enjoy the ribbons of chard running through it.
Serves: 6
Time: 1.5 hrs
Ingredients
1.5 cups cooked and spiced chickpeas* (1 can)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground fenugreek (this spice can be a challenge to find, the curry is perfectly good without it if you cannot get your hands on some)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 bunch of cilantro
5 roma tomatoes or two beefsteaks, diced (or 14.5oz canned diced tomatoes)
.5 lb (2 small) potatoes (we like the waxy kind like a carola or yukon gold)
16 oz of water
1 can coconut milk
1 bunch of swiss chard, cut in ribbons
1 cup rice
olive oil
For the eggplant:
2 lbs eggplant (preferably Japanese if available), cut into 1 inch cubes
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
If you are using dry chickpeas, follow the instructions at the end of this recipe.
Chop and salt the eggplant and let sit 20 min. This is best done in a colander over the sink as the eggplant will release liquid. Pre-heat the oven to 375 F. Drain eggplant and toss with 1/2 tsp cayenne, and 2 tbsp oil. Lay out the seasoned eggplant on a sheet pan and roast until soft and browning on the edges, this takes 45 minutes in our oven, stirring every 15 minutes. Taste a piece, it should be sweet. If bitter or crunchy, it is not done yet.
Cook the rice. Chop and boil the potatoes in well salted water. Drain when fork tender.
Sweat the onions in olive oil over medium heat about 10 minutes. Add garlic and ginger, cook another 2 minutes. Add remaining spices, stir to coat onions and allow to cook about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and 16 oz water and simmer until the tomatoes are soft and beginning to form a sauce, about 20 minutes, stirring regularly. Add eggplant, chickpeas, boiled potatoes, and coconut milk, simmer about 5 minutes. Add swiss chard and cook until wilted. Garnish with cilantro, and serve over rice.
*Cooking chickpeas from dry:
In the Instant Pot:
To cook the chickpeas in an Instant Pot, add 3/4 cup of dried chickpeas to the pot. Cover the chickpeas with water (in the small Instapot this is about 6 cups of water), season with 1 tbsp kosher salt, 1 tbsp turmeric, 1 tbsp coriander, and 1/4 tsp cayenne. Set the Instapot to pressure cook for 35 minutes letting depressurize naturally. Drain and rinse before adding to the dish.
On the stove:
If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can easily cook chickpeas from scratch with a little planning. First you will need to soak the chickpeas which can be done one of two ways. 1. you can soak them overnight making sure they have enough water and space to double in size or 2. you can put them in a pot and bring to boil, then turn off the water and let soak for one hour. Again, make sure you have enough water and space that they can double in size.
Once you have soaked your beans, rinse them and then put in a pot with salty water. These will be cooking for about 2 hours so you don’t want as much salt as you would use for pasta, but you do want to add enough that you can taste the salt. The best way to get good at this is to practice. Each time you salt the water, taste it and when the beans are done taste them to see if they are well salted. A well salted bean should taste flavorful but not salty. If it tastes like you are eating salt, you added too much. If the bean lacks flavor then you didn’t have enough salt.
For this recipe, also add 1 tbsp turmeric, 1 tbsp coriander, and 1/4 tsp cayenne to the chickpeas as they cook. Cook the chickpeas until they are soft but not falling apart (this will take 1.5-2 hours). We recommend checking the beans at about an hour and then every 20 minutes until they are soft but not disintegrating. Make sure your pot has enough water as I have definitely cooked all the water off before and burnt the beans! This may seem like a lot of work, however once you get the hang of it the work is almost all passive and the reward is high: chickpeas cooked from scratch taste much better and are much cheaper!