Punjabi Chhole Revised

Last night I was searching for something quick and easy to make for dinner when I came across a chick pea curry spice packet from Arora Creations called Punjabi Chhole that had been in the cabinet for a few months. We eat a lot of chick peas in our house so I knew that this curry with some Hunza rice would make a perfect meal.

Many people wrongly assume that curry is a spice and that all curries taste the same. This is not accurate at all. I am not sure how my Pakistani husband would describe a curry, but to me a curry is sort of like a pot of beans with a lot of juice that you can serve with cornbread to sop up all the juices. That is exactly how most people in the world eat curries, only with naan bread instead of cornbread and all sorts of vegetables, meat and spices instead of just boiled beans.

You can certainly make your own spice mixes for curries and I like to do that but it does take a little time. I will post more about these later because I think it is fun to do a little experimenting with spices.

The coolest thing about this spice packet is that it is from Arora Creations and they are an organic company. So, I probably do not have to worry about having scary stuff in what I am feeding my family.

I did not follow the instructions listed in the link above because I was feeling lazy, but it still got two thumbs up from Ishtiaq and Liam even sampled a little with his spaghetti.

Punjabi Chhole (Collected and Revised from Arora Creations Spice Packet)

3 cans of chick peas (garbanzo beans are the same thing)
1 packet of Punjabi Chhole spice mix
1 pint of cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
1 can of chicken broth
1 bunch of cilantro, or to taste
1 small onion, or to taste
salt
pepper
olive oil

Drain and rinse your chick peas. Over medium heat, add a dash of olive oil to a non-stick skillet and when heated, add the chick peas and onion. Let that cook a few minutes and then add the spice packet. At this point I added salt and pepper but you can omit it since there is probably some of both in the spice packet. Let the spices and the chickpeas cook a bit over medium heat. Spices in Indian cooking need to bloom on the heat for a bit to fully release their flavors.

When you are ready, or at least after about a minute, add the chicken broth and tomatoes. Lower the heat and let this simmer for about 8-10 minutes, adding water or more chicken broth if necessary. You will want a gravy with this so don't let it get dry. Add the fresh cilantro.

Eat with basmati rice (like Hunza rice from my lamb chops post) or flat bread.