I have been meaning to post this recipe for quite a while and I guess there’s no time like the present. It was almost not going to happen, and as I’m writing this it didn’t happen yet. The people upstairs are blasting away at the wall installing their aircon, and now I’ve got Celine Dion blasting in my ears in turn. Thank goodness for noise-reducing headphones! There’s a solution for everything…well, almost. But now I’m back in the game baby and it feels good.
This morning has been rough. I woke up in a tizzy (is that expression still used today?) after taking for ever to sleep, downed some hot chocolate (not a good idea in this heat) before I changed into something other than my pyjamas to visit my mum. A few trips to the grocery store, veggie truck and other errands, and I was knackered. So if you see a typo or two today, please be kind!
For me, the summer months were always somewhat tricky in terms of what to cook and how much time I am willing to spend in the kitchen. By now you must know that I’m not a summer person. I must have been born in heavy rain, snow or sleet in another life. I wouldn’t be surprised! However there’s a solution for everything, non? This recipe is just the ticket for when a proper meal is needed, without necessarily slaving around in the kitchen for long. It calls for minimal prep and you can start eating in half an hour or even less. You will have a couple of pans going on at the same time but it can be done. Take it from a non-multi-tasking klutz like me. I can handle multi-tasking in the colder months, I think, but now, that’s almost impossible. Not when my head is in a continuous heat fuzz. Keep calm I say to myself and this can be done.
You could serve this curry with rice, of course, however I remember that by the time I made this I had had enough of rice. I had a packet of noodles in the cupboard waiting to be used, and bizarre as it may seem to you, and me, at the time, it went down really well. Serves 2 although I love when recipes can be scaled up and this really is. The kind of noodles* is up to you, but I find that udon or bakmi work best. Feel free to experiment and please drop me a note if you find anything that works well or even better. I’m always up for suggestions. Good luck.
- 250g tinned chickpeas (drained weight)
- pepper, to taste
- around ¼ teaspoon sweet ground paprika
- 1 tablespoon regular olive oil
- 1 strong white onion, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- ¼ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
- ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
- 400g tin of peaches, in juice
- 400g polpa di pomodoro/tinned tomatoes in chunks
- 200ml water
- 2 level teaspoons of sugar
- pinch of salt
- pepper, to taste
- freshly chopped coriander
- 250g udon or bakmi noodles
Drain and rinse the chickpeas very well under cold running water. Roast them in a dry non-stick pan with some pepper and sweet smoked ground paprika until they turn a light golden brown. Remove from pan from the heat and set aside.
In a large, non-stick shallow pan pour in the olive oil gently sweat the onion, garlic, chilli and ground cumin, until the onions turn translucent, not brown.
Drain the peaches, reserving half of the juice from the tin in a jug. Cut the fruit into bite-sized chunks. Tip the peaches into the pan with the onion mixture, with the reserved juice.
Add the roasted chickpeas, together with the polpa di pomodoro, water, sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Finally sprinkle the coriander over the pan and let everything simmer gently for around 30 minutes.
Cook the noodles according to the packet instructions a few minutes before the curry sauce is done and serve.
Rob.
(Recipe very loosely adapted from Jack Monroe’s A Girl Called Jack, Michael Joseph, 2014.)
Chorizo & Thyme 