Name: Spiced Chickpea and Spinach Soup
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 50 ml water; 16 small spinach leaves; vegetable oil, for deep-frying; 200 g dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight; 1 teaspoon sea salt; 2 tablespoons ghee; 1 brown onion, finely diced; 2 small red chillies, minced; 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds; 2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds; 1 teaspoon minced fresh turmeric; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 300 ml White Chicken Stock or Vegetable Stock; 500 ml coconut milk; 2 teaspoons fresh curry leaves; 1 teaspoon ground turmeric; 3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and finely diced; 20 ml fresh lime juice, strained; 3 teaspoons sea salt; 50 g plain flour; 12 green beans, cut crossways into 5 mm slices; 20 ml Mint Yoghurt Sauce; 120 g baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped; 50 g chickpea flour; 2 teaspoons fresh curry leaves, deep-fried until crisp; 1 teaspoon ground cumin

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Fire

By Christine Manfield

Published 2008

About

One of the essential pulses of the Indian pantry, chickpeas are used in myriad preparations, from everyday dishes to celebratory feasts. For the best texture, buy dried chickpeas and soak and cook them yourself – the ones in tins tend to be overcooked and too soft, in my opinion. In India, I have cooked this with fresh fenugreek leaves (methi), but sadly these are not available here, so I have used spinach leaves instead.