A curry is a dish of food pieces cooked in a richly, spiced sauce. Every region of the world has it’s own style and technique, often inspired by whatever is available locally.

Unlike much of the world’s population, I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to buy ingredients from all over the world in my local health food store. Spices and tropical ingredients really bring culinary magic into my life – I feel totally blessed! I always source fair-trade and organic ingredients wherever possible.

Supporting ethical food practices really makes a difference to people’s lives out there. It’s fascinating to think that people we’ll never meet in person, play such an important role in our everyday culinary experience – something that can be easily taken for granted.

Before preparing my curries, I always stop to appreciate that these intensely aromatic dishes are only possible because people far away, spent the time to pick these spices and foods for me.

In my kitchen, curries are inspired by warming spices that just want to be in the pot together. Creamy coconut sauce, infused with fresh ginger, freshly crushed cardamom seeds, ground coriander and a little je n’sais quoi really does it for me.

The following combination has lots of chickpeas and is the sort of dish I might create when I want to serve up a tasty, high protein meal.

This coconut chickpea curry recipe is a tasty infusion of ingredients using things like fresh ginger, cardamom seeds, turmeric, coriander, sweet potatoes and mushrooms.

Cardamom is one of my favourite ingredients, bringing an aromatic sweet-spicy infusion of magic. I always favour the pods over the pre-ground stuff, because ready ground cardamom loses its flavour so quickly that it can be rather disappointing. It’s really easy to grind your own and well worth the effort. It’s important to buy good quality, green pods. I’ve created a short video to show you how to use cardamom pods…

Turmeric makes a special appearance in this recipe, responsible for giving your dish a rich yellow colour. Although its claim to fame really is its outstanding health benefits. Turmeric has been shown to act as a powerful anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and offers incredible all-round support.

Fresh ginger is another favourite addition, bringing a distinctive zesty flavour to combining particularly well with the other ingredients in this recipe. It is a well loved, tried and tested, flavoursome spice that has been revered for a myriad of health benefits throughout the aeons. You can really all about the health benefits of ginger here: 10 reasons why we all should be eating ginger

This creamy coconut curry is a splendid infusion of ingredients that not only taste delicious together, but are supportive of our health and longevity. It serves well on its own or on top of rice, millet or quinoa. Enjoy!

Creamy Coconut Chickpea Curry Recipe (dairy-free, vegan & delicious) Yield: 3 to 4 Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes Total Time: 25 minutes This coconut chickpea curry recipe is a tasty infusion of ingredients using fresh ginger, cardamom seeds, turmeric, coriander, sweet potatoes and mushrooms. Print Ingredients 400g sweet potato (2 medium sized)

250g chestnut mushrooms (two large handfuls) - also known as crimini mushrooms

1 - 2 teaspoons coconut oil

300g cooked chickpeas (2 cups)

100ml water (just UNDER 1/2 cup)

1 teaspoon fresh ginger

4 cardamom pods

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Pinch of chili powder (or white pepper)

1 heaped tablespoon tomato puree

250ml coconut cream (one cup)

Small handful of fresh parsley Instructions Chop sweet potato (skins still on) into small cubes. No more than 1.5cm (half inch) cubed works best to allow for minimal cooking time and absorption of spices. Slice mushrooms and saute for no more than a couple of minutes in a pan. Toss the sweet potatoes into the pan of mushrooms, add the water and mix in. Replace the lid (important not to boil all the water off) and bring to a simmer. Finely grate a teaspoon worth of fresh ginger and mix into the pan. Crush cardamom seeds (watch my short cardamom pod video above to see how) and mix into the pan. Mix in the ground coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, cumin, chili powder and tomato puree at this stage and allow all ingredients to dance together. Make sure you replace the lid to keep the moisture in, but do stir frequently. The sweet potatoes should cook in the steam and there should be enough water so that it doesn't boil dry (but be careful, too much water will thin the coconut cream too much). After about 10 minutes of cooking, stir in the chickpeas. When it looks like all of the water has absorbed into the rest of the ingredients, stir in the coconut cream. This recipe is ready when you can pierce the sweet potato with a fork. Finely chop the parsley and add it right at the end. Serve immediately or reheat later. If you do serve later, then you might like to add a splash of water to loosen it up again for re-heating.

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