Pumpkin Chickpea Curry
Are we still saying delicious and nutritious? Sure, but make it cool.
By Erin Henderson
Have you ever wondered why the can used for pumpkin puree is so huge? It’s easily double the size of a normal can.
If I ever need something canned in large quantities, pumpkin is not it. Coconut milk, sure. White kidney beans, yes. Chickpeas, absolutely. But not pumpkin.
This ongoing, and still mysterious, pumpkin drama has led me to get creative over the years. As you will find on this blog, I’ve made pumpkin spice simple syrup, pumpkin bechamel, and pumpkin lasagna. If you cared to, you could swap in pumpkin in the butternut squash soup. As they say, necessity is the mother of all invention. A delicious mother, it turns out.
As I now find myself smack-dab in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I have an abundance of pumpkin to get through. Enter the pumpkin chickpea curry.
This was inspired in large part to a recent recipe posted in Food and Wine magazine. However, I swapped out their cooking method for the technique I learned in an Indian cooking class I took at George Brown College, which also uses considerably more aromatic spices. F&W includes chicken in their recipe, and I chose to leave mine vegetarian for no other reason than rich and robust braises, roasts, and bakes abound this time of year, and I am craving a little levity.
Pumpkin Chickpea Curry
A note about step 4: You need the whole spices to flavour the fat and the onions, so you want them sauteeing freely in the ghee. However, I can't stand picking things out of my dinner (don't even get me started on shrimp tails in pasta), so as a way to sidestep that pet peeve, and avoid the discomfort of biting into a whole spice, I remove the cardamom and cloves while they are still easy to see, put them in cheesecloth, adding a few dried curry leaves if I have them, and add the wrapped spices back to the pot with the coconut milk to continue braising and flavouring the liquid. As I said this is entirely optional, and I seem to be the only weirdo who does this, but here we are.
A note on the note about step 4. Admitedly, it's super weird and puts my intense neurosis in the spotlight. I debated for a good while about whether I should include it. It may just be confusing to you, or at the very least, it's not super professional. However, I landed on, "I is who I is," and this is literally the way I make my curry. But, I reiterate, it is optional, so if you think it's a nutty thing to do, you are likely in the majority. You will be just fine fishing out – or eating – the whole spices in your dinner.
PS – make sure you are using pumpkin puree – not pumpkin pie filling!
Makes: about 2 litres
Chef level: easy
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup ghee
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 3 green cardamom pods
- 2 pcs cloves
- 1 Tbsp salt, divided and to taste
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 2 Tbsp garlic paste
- 2 Tbsp ginger paste
- 1 tsp chili powder (preferably Kashmiri)
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 2 cups pumpkin puree
- 796 g canned chickpeas, drained
- 348 g canned full fat coconut milk
- 1 Tbsp garam masala
- Juice of 1 lime, divided in two
- 150 g baby spinach
- Fresh coriander
How to Make It:
- Melt the ghee over medium heat until very hot. Add a few cumin seeds – if they crackle the ghee is hot enough, if they don’t, allow the ghee to increase in temperature.
- Add the cumin seeds, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon to the hot ghee and allow to crackle for 30 seconds.
- Add the onion and a pinch of salt. Lower the heat a little and sauté until the onion is golden and very soft. About 20 minutes.
- (Weird step that I do, but is not necessary: remove the cardamom pods and cloves while you can still easily find them. Place them in cheesecloth, with a few curry leaves if you have them, and return to the pot.)
- Add the garlic and ginger pastes, the red chili, ground cumin, ground coriander, 1 tsp of salt, and the turmeric, and stir through for 30 seconds – enough to create a slight fragrance but not long enough to burn the powdered spices.
- Add the pumpkin puree, the chickpeas, and the coconut milk. Rinse the coconut milk can with a little water (about ¼ cup) and add the water to the pot as well.
- Stir through and allow to gently simmer for about 15 minutes.
- Add garam masala and half the lime juice.
- Adjust for salt and acid.
- Wilt in the spinach, about 2 minutes.
- Serve with a generous sprinkling of fresh coriander.
Wine Pairing:
Dry Chenin Blanc from South Africa.
Chenin Blanc comes in a range of styles from sweet to sparkling to dry, so do ensure you get a dry one. Chenin Blanc has an enticingly silky texture, with rich flavours of yellow pear and ripe peach and a subtle floral note, all backed up by fresh acidity.
Because this curry is aromatically spicy, but not hot, with the sweet-earthy flavours of pumpkin, chickpeas and coconut milk get picked up beautifully by the wine. The full weight of the wine matches the dense texture of the curry.