Chicken, Chickpea & Spinach Curry

This straightforward dish feels like real cooking, somehow.  Pootling about in the kitchen for a while, wearing an apron; sounds of sizzling and amazingly delicious smells wafting through the house.  Even better, the simmering time is sufficient for me to put two cups of basmati rice and a few cardamom pods into the hallowed rice cooker with some water and switch it on for a perfect, no-tears side dish;  my relaxed raita is easily stirred together, leaving me plenty of time for a cheeky pre-prandial while I straighten up the kitchen.  


Chicken, Chickpea & Spinach Curry


3 tbsp cooking oil
a few cloves
a few cardamom pods
2 fresh or 1 dried bay leaf
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
about an inch of ginger root
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
500g carton passata
150ml carton single cream
400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 tsp garam masala
500g chicken thigh meat, sliced 
250g spinach leaves, washed


Whizz the garlic and ginger, with about 4 tbsp of water, in the blender to make a runny paste.  Heat the fat in a large pan. Add the cloves, cardamom and bay leaves to the pan and sizzle for a few seconds.  Add the the onion and fry until soft but not coloured.  Scrape the garlic-ginger paste into the pan and stir everything together well, then mix in the spices and cook briefly; the smell really is brilliant!  Pour in the passata, add the rinsed chickpeas and swirl in the cream.  Sprinkle in the garam masala, then add the chicken to the pan.  Simmer gently for 30 minutes, stirring only occasionally, then fold the spinach into the curry until wilted.  Serve with rice and a dollop of  raita.  It tastes even better than it smells, believe me.


This curry really does freeze amazingly well; so much so that I often do a double batch, squirrelling half of it away for a future meal.  It's great when you can just defrost a really nice home-cooked evening meal in an emergency!

Cath xx