A Taste of Africa: Moroccan Chickpea Stew
Getting to know Africa includes experiencing the vastly different - and yummy - expressions of each culture through food!
This super simple stew is so tasty you will make it over and over again. We often do a double batch and enjoy it for several meals. The recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of garam masala which is a mixture of a variety of spices. AllRecipes has a fail-safe garam masala recipe. You can buy it pre-mixed, but it is so easy and economical to make it yourself.
We love sharing our family recipes with you but please remember you can search online and find lots of variations on this dish and other terrific African recipes. An online recipe site we use over and over again is The Congo Cookbook. My East Africa Journal is also a great source for recipes. AllRecipes and Food.com are also good resources. As always, we've tried to approximate our family method of preparing this recipe. We have some finicky eaters in our family, who aren't big on meats, so this recipe is a great way to get some protein into them.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (you don't have to use cayenne, we often use a rough ground black pepper)
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 2 teaspoons ground coriander
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin (as always, experiment - we like a bit more cumin)
- 2 cloves of minced garlic
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (as always, we substitute broad leaf parsley as we don't like cilantro)
- 1 bunch of kale with the ribs removed, chopped
- 3 potatoes, cubed
- 1 small onion, chopped (we always use a sweet onion)
- 1 cup of tomato sauce
- 1 can of diced tomatoes (14 ounces or thereabouts)
- 1 cup of golden raisins
- 1 can of chickpeas, drained and well rinsed (about 14 ounces)
- Water (just enough to cover the mixture when you get to that point)
Instructions
- Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until the onions are cooked through. We like ours slightly caramelized.
- Then stir in all the spices and cook for around a minute. Until the spices smell terrific!
- Add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce and the potatoes and raisins.
- Pour just enough water over everything to cover the mixture. Bring it up to a nice simmer for about 15 minutes. You're done when the potatoes are cooked through.
- Add the chickpeas and kale and simmer everything until the kale wilts. It won't take very long 3-4 minutes at most.
- Sprinkle the cilantro or broad leaf parsley over the top.
This recipe makes 4 servings (depending on the size of your bowl or appetite!). We almost always make a double batch because we look forward to having it several times. This stew goes well with almost any bread or biscuit. Enjoy! And please let us know how you enjoy this recipe and any creative culinary modifications you make.
