Palak chole is a healthy Indian style chickpea and spinach curry in which freshly cooked chickpeas is added to onion-spinach-almond gravy with the usual Indian spices.
This chickpea and spinach curry have a vibrant green color and creamy texture with super flavorful taste.
Soaked and freshly cooked chickpeas make a huge difference in this recipe, as you are cooking chickpeas with cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves and tomatoes. So along with cooking chickpeas, you are also making a flavorful and aromatic stock and using this stock in the curry will take the curry to the other level. But if you want to work with canned chickpeas, use stock for making gravy. Cooking tomatoes with chickpeas not only makes the stock flavorful but it also saves time and less oil is needed, as you don’t need to saute the tomatoes with onion to make usual Indian gravy.
Palak Chole / Chickpea and Spinach Curry Recipe
Course: MainCuisine: IndianDifficulty: Medium8
servings25
minutes50
minutes8
hoursA very healthy curry called palak chole with chickpeas and spinach cooked together in traditional yummy Indian gravy.
Ingredients
- For cooking chickpeas :-
2 cups of dry chickpeas
1 cinnamon stick
3 cardamom
4 cloves
1 bay leaf
2 medium tomatoes, cubed
- For curry :-
1/2 pound of spinach
15 almond soaked and peeled
2 medium onion finely chopped
8 garlic cloves finely chopped
1/2 tsp of cumin seeds
2 tsp of coriander powder
1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
1 tsp of red chili powder or to taste
1 tsp of garam masala
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- For cooking chickpeas :-
- Soak the chickpea in 5 cups of water for at least 8 hours or overnight. Then drain the chickpeas.
- Heat a pressure cooker and add drained chickpeas, 5 cups of water, bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, tomatoes and salt.
- Put the lid and whistle on and cook until 3-4 whistles over medium heat or until the chickpeas are fully done.
- Wait until the pressure goes down then open the cooker and keep it aside.(You can pick out all the whole spices if you want)
- Take out about 1/3 cup of cooked chickpea and mash it with the help of fork and keep it aside.
- For curry :-
- Heat a wide pan and add spinach with 1/3 cup of water and put on the lid and cook until the spinach wilts(about 5 minutes).
- Switch off the heat and transfer spinach and soaked almonds into a blender and let it cool down for a bit, then puree it and keep it aside.
- Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds, when it sizzles add onions, garlic and salt and let it cook until the onions are translucent.
- Add coriander powder, turmeric, red chili and garam masala and saute for a minute.
- Add pureed spinach and let it cook for another minute and add chickpea, mashed chickpea and its cooking liquid and simmer for 5-8 minutes.
- Palak chole or chicken and spinach curry is done. Serve with paratha or chapati or steamed rice.
