Sunday Dinner: Coconut Curry Chick Peas and Mango Salad

Chick peas are a great vegetarian source of protein – very tasty, easy to incorporate into different meals and inexpensive. You can buy them canned, or if you’re extra-frugal, pick up a large bag of dried chick peas. Dried chick peas, like most other legumes, have to be soaked overnight and cooked for a couple of hours ahead of time, but you can do large batches and freeze smaller, pre-cooked portions for use later.

This is an easy, delicious recipe that would also work well with chicken as the protein source. The vegetables in the curry and the mango in the salad make it bright and colorful, and I love cooking this kind of meal for people who aren’t familiar with Thai-style food, since making something unusual (to the guests I’m serving) is a great substitute for making something difficult.

You’ll need:

2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped
one large onion
1 large red pepper
2 cups chopped green beans (can be frozen)
bamboo shoots and/or water chestnuts (optional)
2 cups cooked chick peas
can coconut milk
2 Tbsp curry powder (if you like spicy food, you can add dried chili flakes or use red curry paste instead)
salt to taste
lime leaf for garnish, if desired.

Heat the oil in a large (deep) skillet or wok and saute the onion and garlic over medium heat until softened (1-2 minutes). Add the rest of the vegetables and stir fry 3-4 minutes. Add the cooked chick peas, then pour the coconut milk over (make sure it’s enough to just cover the vegetables and chick peas). Add the curry powder/paste, chili flakes (if using) and salt. Turn the heat to low and cook, stiring occasionally, until most of the cocounut milk has been absorbed.

Serve it over jasmine rice – to add extra flavor to the rice, you can replace some of the cooking liquid with coconut milk instead of water and add butter or margarine during cooking (note: if you’re looking to reduce fat from your diet, limit the coconut milk – the flavor from the curry itself will certainly prevent your rice from tasting bland).

A Thai mango salad makes a great side dish for this meal.

For the salad itself, slice two firm mangoes, one red pepper, a few green onions and mix with 3-4 cups mixed greens, 2 grated carrots, and 2 Tbsp chopped fresh mint.

For the dressing, grate the rind and squeeze the juice from a lime and combine with 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp sugar and dried chili flakes/salt and pepper to taste.

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