Lesley Enston's Curried Chana & Aloo
This Trinidadian & Toboganian curry from Belly Full is comforting and complex, and might provide the excuse to explore some new ingredients
This rich and delicious, big-flavor vegan curry comes from Lesley Enston’s cookbook Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes. You can find my Q&A with Lesley and more about her book here.
The recipe and Lesley’s notes are below, but there are a few ingredients that may require sourcing, depending on where you live:
Scotch Bonnet pepper: Directly native to the Caribbean, Scotch Bonnets belong to the same species as habaneros. That might provide some hint that they’re one of the hottest chiles you can get — you may want to wear gloves while handling them. But they also have a beautiful, unique flavor that Lesley describes as smokey. While this curry undoubtedly has heat, it’s by no means unbearably hot. (That said, I did seed my Scotch Bonnet.) You can substitute a habanero, but it will change the profile of the dish.
Trinidad curry powder: Chief Curry Powder is Lesley’s favorite brand, which contains coriander, turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, salt, fennel, and chile. Here’s one option if you’d like to make your own.
Culantro: A “distant, more pungent cousin of cilantro,” it also goes by bhandhania, chadon beni, cilantro ancho, recao, and recaíto. You can find it in Asian markets, as well as Asian and Latin American ones. Lesley notes that if you can’t find it, substitute cilantro, doubling the volume.
Here’s Lesley’s description of her Curried Chana & Aloo in Belly Full:
This dish was in regular rotation in my house growing up. It was the reason the house constantly smelled like curry and all our spoons were stained yellow. Reflecting the huge impact East Indians have had on Trinidadian cooking, this vegan recipe can be found in households across the island, served over rice or inside roti. Trinidad curry powder is key. I like the brand Chief, but there are others available, and all are easily found online. In addition to making delicious curry, it’s also one of my go-to seasonings in general, and I particularly like using it on roasted vegetables.
While I almost always opt for dried beans over canned, I have discovered that canned chickpeas work perfectly fine here, which makes this dish a weeknight-meal contender. If you’d like to use dried chickpeas, be sure to soak them overnight, then cook them in fresh water for at least an hour, or until tender, and save their cooking water to be used in step 3. If you can’t find culantro (also called chadon beni, shado beni, or bhandhania in Trinidad), you can substitute 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves. Make it a complete meal by stirring in baby spinach at the end and serving the curry over rice.
Curried Chana & Aloo (Curried Chickpeas and Potatoes)
Shared with permission — from Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes
Serves 6 to 8
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 Scotch bonnet pepper, minced
2 tablespoons Trinidad curry powder
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground cumin
6 culantro leaves, minced, or 1 cup chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
1 large potato, peeled and chopped into 1-inch cubes
2 (15.5-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 scallions, thinly sliced
3 cups water
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Freshly cooked rice, for serving
1. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, and Scotch bonnet and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown, 5 to 8 minutes. Add the curry powder, turmeric, cumin, culantro, and thyme. Cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant and grainy, about 1 minute. The mixture will look dry and like it’s sticking to the bottom of the pot.
2. Add the potato and stir to coat. Add the chickpeas and scallions and cook for 2 minutes more. Again, it might look like things are about to burn. They won’t.
3. Stir in the water, enough to just barely cover the ingredients, and bring to a boil. Add the salt, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, occasionally stirring and smashing some of the potatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon to release their starch, until the curry is thick and the potatoes are nearly melting into the sauce, about 40 minutes. Don’t worry if the curry looks too watery at first; the liquid will evaporate and the potato starch will thicken it up nicely.
4. Remove from the heat and serve with the rice. This dish keeps well in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 4 months.
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What other oil can I use and less hot pepper?