Cooking with Dipa: Coconut Chickpea Curry

Hi everyone. So a few weeks ago I posted a picture of a coconut curry recipe that I had. Coconut chickpea curry recipe that I had put a picture of and many of you had wanted the recipe. So I'm finally going to be sharing this live with you and showing you exactly how I make this recipe. So I've laid out all my ingredients here. Here I have some shallots which are from the onion family. I've chopped them up finely here. And shallots which are from the onion family are great for your cardiovascular system. They're anti inflammatory, they're anti oxidants, they're high in sulfur. So which makes them great for the heart as well. I have some cilantro here to garnish with. Hi Marcia, thanks for joining. Cilantro is great for supporting your detoxification pathways. Here I have a little bit of ginger, garlic and green chili paste that my mom makes for me and I just keep it in the freezer and I just kind of break off a chunk whenever I need to use it for any curry recipe. Here I have some grated ginger. Ginger is antibacterial. It's antiviral. It's. It's great for fighting off any viruses like the common cold. It's also very high in antioxidants and it's very anti inflammatory as well. Here I have some chopped up garlic. Garlic is also very high in sulfur. It's also very antibacterial and I add it to almost every one of my recipes.

Here I have some fresh lemon, which lemon is from the citrus family.

It's very high in vitamin C and I add it to a lot of.

My curries as well. Here I have some ground cumin, which is going to be one of the spices that I use in the curry. I have some Himalayan pink salt.

Hi Vanita, thanks for joining in.

I don't use regular table salt. I use Himalayan pink salt. It's very high in natural minerals and it's not processed. So that's the salt that I prefer to use. I have some avocado oil here. I always cook with avocado oil because it has a higher smoke point. It's also not processed like vegetable and canola oil. So I always use avocado oil for my cooking. Here I have some coconut cream. I add a little bit of this to my curry just to kind of give it a really rich flavor and taste. Coconut also coconut cream also provides a great source of healthy fats.

And then I have my chickpeas here.

I use this organic chickpea brand. And it's important that you use organic chickpeas, because chickpeas are actually heavily sprayed with Roundup. And so it's important to use organic chickpeas. I also use this brand here because the lining of the can is BPA free. BPA is something called a xenoestrogen, so it mimics estrogen in our body, and it's found in many plastics. It's also found in a lot of canned goods. So it's important when you buy canned goods that you buy canned goods that are BPA free. Here I have some organic tomatoes, strained tomatoes in this recipe. I typically do like to use fresh tomatoes, but I am out of fresh tomatoes today, so I always keep a jar of organic strained tomatoes to use in my curries. Here I just have some filtered water, which I will be adding to the recipe.

And then here I have my beautiful spice container. And I won't be using all of these in this recipe, but I will be using the turmeric, the red chili powder, and the ground coriander and cumin in this recipe. So the first thing I do, I have my pot here, turn on my stove, let it heat up a little bit, and I'll just add my oil. And I kind of just eyeball things. I don't have exact measurements, but typically it's about one to two tablespoons of oil, and you can let that heat up for a little bit. I have a gas stove, so it actually does heat up quite quickly. And I'm gonna be adding my shallots to the oil. So the oil is not completely heated up yet, but that's okay. So just add some of those. And my stove is just on a medium heat right now, So just stir those up a little bit, and if you want them to cook faster, you can actually put the lid on. Because when you put the lid on, it kind of creates some steam, which.

Helps to.

Brown those onions. So Reese is asking if I make this recipe with other beans as well, such as lentils. And I haven't tried this recipe with other beans. There is a very similar recipe that you can do with kidney beans, so that is one that you can maybe substitute out with this recipe. I've never tried the coconut cream with the kidney beans, but that is one that's quite similar, just minus the coconut cream. So, yeah, you can use kidney beans as well if you don't have chickpeas at home. Okay. So just letting the onions simmer there and get a little bit browned. Okay. So as you can see, my stove is Very fast, which is great. Okay. So once those shallots have browned a little bit, you can add in your garlic. So I'm just gonna add that in. Hi, Jillian. Yeah, it's a great recipe. It's really quick, really easy, really healthy. It's vegetarian as well, so, you know, for any vegetarians out there, this is a great recipe that I make at least once a month. Okay. So once those have kind of cooked and browned a little bit, you can start to add some of your spices. And the reason we add the spices to the oils is because it really helps to bring out the beneficial properties. So turmeric actually is better absorbed when it's kind of cooked in oils, and it's also better absorbed with black pepper. So just put a little bit of turmeric, some red chili powder, like a quarter teaspoon. And then I have some ground cumin and ground coriander seeds here. And I usually put about three of these spoons, so it's a little smaller than a teaspoon, probably like half a teaspoon. And I kind of just mix that up. And you want to make sure your stove is not too high because you don't want the spices to burn. And then I just add a little bit. So if I had fresh tomatoes, I would have had fresh tomatoes right now. But I'm just gonna add a little bit of my tomato paste. You can add your tomato paste and just. Simmer that a little bit. And now you can turn your stove up a little bit, back up to low, medium heat. And I'll put the exact measurements in the comments after this video to kind of give you guys a better sense of how much of each ingredient you need to use. So I just let that simmer for a little bit. Okay. And then I actually add my chickpeas, And I just stir that up and kind of let them get coated with the tomato paste and all the spices. Okay. And then I actually was supposed to add my ground ginger and green chili and garlic paste, which I just added now to the oil, but it's fine. You can add it right now as well. And then I basically add some water. Sorry, guys. I'm trying to obviously record this and cook at the same time, so. And then I let this come to a boil. So I actually turn up the heat here on my stove so that I can let it come to a boil. And this is where I can I add my ginger. Okay. So I just grated some ginger and added that. This is where you can add little bit of your lemon as well. So I kind of just give that a little squeeze. And I also add my salt. So a little bit of salt. And like I said, I use the pink salt. And then you can also add some of the coconut cream right now as well. Grab that. So I already had a can open earlier this week, so I'm just going to add some of that in. So you can use a light coconut cream or a heavier coconut cream. This one here is a heavier coconut cream, And I just typically add a few tablespoons of that. So you can add more or less, depending on how much you want to add. And then once this comes to a boil, I pretty much just let it simmer for about half an hour and then I'll give it a taste. And if I feel like it needs a little bit more salt or a little bit more lemon, I'll just kind of add that as needed. And then I just top it off with my cilantro to garnish. So that's pretty much it, guys. It's pretty easy if you have all the preparation done. It's pretty fast recipe. And like I said, I'll post the exact recipe in the comments. Thanks for watching, guys. Bye for now.