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Chintal’s Chickpea Curry

Dr Chintal Patel

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Serves: 1

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

400g tin chickpeas

400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 small onion

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp oil

1-2 tsp curry powder

150g rice (about 2/3 cup)

Salt, to taste

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This easy curry tastes even better after a few days as all the flavours deepen, so try to make double. If you’re not fond of curry, skip the curry powder to make a delicious stew instead. You can also add fresh or frozen spinach at the end to make a chick pea and spinach curry.

Method:

Chop the onion and garlic finely.
 
Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the chopped onion, stir well. When the onion softens and turns translucent, add the chopped garlic. Stir for a minute on a low heat, you want to soften the garlic not burn it.
 
Drain and rinse the tinned chickpeas and add them to the pan along with the tin of chopped tomatoes. Add the curry powder, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer on a low – medium heat for about 10 minutes to get a rich thick sauce. If it is starting to look too thick, just add a little water. Keep stirring every few minutes to make sure it doesn’t stick.
 
To make the rice, first rinse it in cold water. Next, boil a large saucepan of water. For 150g you will need about 1-1.5l of water. Add the rice to the water and simmer for about 15-18 minutes. Drain well and serve hot with the curry.
Engaging Kids

Engaging Kids

Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.

Kids in the kitchen

Kids in the kitchen

The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

Activities

Activities

While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.

Sensory

Sensory

Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.

Serving

Serving

The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.

Portrait of GP and cookbook writer Dr Chintal Patel, ambassador for the Bang in Some Beans campaign

Dr Chintal Patel

Chintal is an NHS GP with over 20 years of clinical experience and an award-winning food content creator. With a passion for nutrition and lifestyle medicine, she helps families cook wholesome, affordable and accessible meals. Chintal is also a cookbook author, recipe developer and regular contributor to publications including Good Food. She runs cookery classes and health education workshops for adults and children, sharing practical advice on family nutrition and feeding picky eaters.

drchintalskitchen.com/

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