Sweet and sour chickpea curry

The convention for our team meetings at work has been to bring cake. We work literally around the corner from Konditor and Cook, so we have been spoilt with sweet, rich and gooey cakes of every brownie variety possible. However, it has come to light that one of the team is not so keen on sweet things, so I suggested cheese and crackers for our next team meeting. Well, it also turns out one of the team doesn't eat dairy!


With this in mind and as tomorrows meeting runs up to lunch time, I suggested I bring in an 'Indian Feast', akin to a thali really, which I think everyone will enjoy. See the work Diwali effort. So, I thought I would cook up this sweet and sour chickpea curry, to be accompanied by a dahl, gujerati noodles and an onion raita.


What makes this dish sour you might ask? It is the combination of two indian souring agents, tamarind and the kokum. The kokum is part of the mangosteen family. It is usually dried and used as a souring agent in dahls and curries, often replacing tamarind. I have, however gone crazy and used both in mine as the flavours are distinct and different, as different as tamarind and lemon are from one another.



What you will need
1 tea spoon mustard seeds
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
15-18 curry leaves
1 star anise
8-10 cloves
1 kokum (optional)
2 tea spoons ground cumin
2 tea spoon ground coriander
1 tea spoon tumeric
1/2 tea spoon garam masala
1-2 tea spoon chilli powder
2 green chillis
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 tins of chick peas
2 table spoons of tomato puree
1 tea spoon sugar
1 tea spoon tamarind concentrate


Firstly slice the onion, crush the garlic and either grate or finely chop the ginger.


Next, place a tea spoon of oil on to heat, adding the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add the onions, ginger and garlic and soften for 5-6 minutes, before adding the star anise, curry leaves, cloves and kokum.


When the onions have browned and become translucent add all the ground spices (coriander, cumin, tumeric, garam masala and chilli powder) and cook for one more minute before adding the chopped fresh green chillies.


Next, add the tinned tomatoes along with the same amount of water to the pan, season with salt and add the drained tins of chickpeas.


Bring the pan up to boil before stirring in the tamarind concentrate, the sugar and the tomato puree.

Turn the heat down and reduce the curry sauce for 15-20 minutes until the desired consistency.

Serve with rice or naan bread. I of course had spicy noddles, a refreshing raita and a comforting dahl with mine.