I, once again, found myself needing to come up with revised dinner plans at the last minute and, once again, I turned to a curry recipe to solve this. Shockingly, this curry is not a recipe out of 660 Curries! I was perusing the Dish of the Day cookbook and spotted this recipe and figured it would be a nice way to use up my last sweet potato.

I ended up adjusting the proportions slightly (adding more tomatoes and peas than the original recipe called for), but stayed pretty true to the original. And it turned out surprisingly well! I'm usually a bit wary of making curries from recipe authors other than Iyer, but this one turned out nicely. It wasn't an all-time favourite, but it made for a satisfying dinner. Especially with the addition of some brown rice and a few spicy turmeric pickles!

Chickpea & Sweet Potato Curry

Slightly adapted from Dish of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. minced fresh ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 fresh Thai or jalapeño chile, seeded and minced
• 1 Tbsp. Madras curry powder
• 3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-cm dice
• 1 can (540mL) chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or ~2 c. cooked chickpeas)
• 1 can (400mL) coconut milk
• 1 c. water
• 1 1/2 c. frozen peas
• 1 small can (~400mL) diced tomatoes

Directions

1. Heat the oil over medium-low heat.
2. Add the onion, ginger, garlic, and chile and cook until onion is transluscent (5-6 minutes).
3. Add the curry powder and cook for another 30-60 seconds.
4. Stir in the salt and pepper.
5. Immediately add the sweet potato, chickpeas, coconut milk, and water and stir to combine.
6. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until sweet potato is tender (~10 minutes).
8. Add the peas and tomatoes and cook until heated through (~5 minutes).
9. Serve over rice/pulao with hot pickles, chutney, and or cilantro.