Chicken Tomato and Chickpea Curry with Cavalo Nero

A few months ago in the Australian Healthy Food Guide, there was an article on Sprout, a cooking school in Adelaide, run by Dietitian Themis Chryssidis and Callum Hann, who was a contestant on Masterchef.  Given that I run healthy cooking workshops here in Sydney I was most interested to read about them.

The article included a curry paste recipe, along with three curries using the paste.  The paste and the curries all looked and sounded so good I had to give them a go.

I decided to start with their chicken curry, but when it came time to make it I was in a hurry (curry in a hurry?).  I didn’t have time to prepare the curry paste, so I adapted the recipe a bit to include about 1/3 of most of the ingredients from the curry paste.  I also made a few other little changes which included that since I didn’t have any spinach,  I substituted Cavalo Nero. That’s right, I really can’t stick to a recipe!

The curry was really delicious and since it made enough for two nights, it was even tastier the second time.

Here is my version…

 

Chicken, Tomato and Chickpea Curry with Cavalo Nero

Serves 4-6

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 400g skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 large brown onion, chopped
• 1 large red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon curry powder (I used Herbie’s Korma curry powder)
• 1 tablespoon garam masala (I used Screaming Seeds garam masala)
• 1 bunch coriander, roots and stems separated from leaves, roots and stems finely chopped, leaves roughly chopped
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 400g can diced tomatoes
• 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 bunch Cavalo Nero, washed well and chopped into 1 cm wide pieces (or use a bunch of English spinach or silverbeet)
• 1 heaped teaspoon Massel chicken stock powder
• 1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
• long grain brown rice, quinoa, barley or rice plus to serve

Directions:

1. Heat a large saucepan over medium heat.  When hot add 2 teaspoons of oil and the chicken and cook until golden brown on both sides.  This should only take 2-3 minutes.
2. Remove chicken from pan and set aside.
3. Return pan to medium heat, add the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil and onion and fry until golden.
4. Add garlic, ginger, curry powder and garam masala and cook for 2 minutes.
5. Add tomatoes, lemon juice and chopped coriander roots and stems to pan and cook for a further 2 minutes.
6. Add chickpeas, cavalo nero and 1-1 1/2  cups of water to pan and cook with lid on for 10 minutes, until cavalo nero is soft and cooked through.
7. Return chicken to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes until heated and cooked through.
8. Stir through chopped coriander leaves and serve on top of rice, barley, quinoa or rice plus.

Per Serve (4 serves):  1398kJ or 333 calories; P 29g Fat 14g SFat 3g CHO 19g Fibre 9g