Spinach and Chickpea Curry

My sister gave me a stash of cooking magazine to look through and this recipe popped out at me. It is the sort of brilliant recipe that is dead simple and super quick to make, but tastes as complex as a time-consuming complicated recipe.

Spicy Goan Curry Black-Eyed Peas

I stumbled across Hungry Desi last night and wanted to make everything I saw. I started with a recipe for black-eyed peas that Nithya adapted from Ruta Kahate’s “5 Spices, 50 Dishes” (as it appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle). I looked back to the original recipe, and added back in the coconut milk that Nithya left out.

 

Chickpeas and Vegetable Madras

This is from a vegetarian cookbook that is a cult classic in my extended family–although it is out of print and otherwise seems to have been forgotten. All my siblings and my parents have a copy of Carol Gelles’s Wholesome Harvest. My grandmother (Z”L) loved the soup recipes.

Anyway, I have neglected it of late. My sister was telling me about this soup, Harirah, that she was making, and when I asked where she got the recipe, she said: “Wholesome Harvest!” She also made a sweet potato red lentil soup recently from the book. So, I took a look at the book and made my modified version of the Cabbage Soup (which my husband loves) and a big pot of vegetable stew.