We are on serious countdown to the holidays now, and Friday can’t come soon enough! I have finally convinced my family that we should go camping for our Summer holidays this year. I won’t lie, it was a hard task. My daughter has a serious taste for luxury hotels and she loves her home comforts, her dad is the same. I admit I’m very partial to those things myself but I love camping. And I think camping is the best antidote to our super connected lives at the moment. A digital detox is on the cards for all of us. So I’ve been scouring the wide web for camping recipes, there are a lot of great camping recipes out there but I need something a little bit healthier. So this mildly spiced, easy, aubergine spinach & chickpea curry is on the menu for our camping trip.
I believe that we should absolutely have sausages and burgers on our camping trip but I can only live on sausages for a day or two. I need to have something that is healthy and easy to make and this recipe fits that bill. This aubergine spinach and chickpea curry is easy to make and it’s a one pot dinner so no fussing about with more pans. It is mildly spiced for the sake of my husband and my daughter but you can add more heat if you wish. A finely chopped green chilli added when you add the garlic and ginger will do the job nicely. My daughter loved this but I guarantee you she wouldn’t love it so much if there was more heat involved.
This aubergine spinach and chickpea curry can be made a day ahead if you like. I serve it with naan or rice or both if I’m really hungry. You can also add a dollop of yogurt and some almond flakes when serving if you like. Like all stews, and curries, this tastes even better the next day. I plan on packing the spices for this in a little jar before we go, that way I won’t be packing all my spices. So, there may be a few more camping recipes coming here in the next few weeks, but a really good resource for all things food when camping is Fresh Off The Grid, these guys really know their onions. I’ve been following them for some now and they never fail to provide inspiration. Have camping inspo for me? I’d love to hear it. Right, I’m off to buy a tent x
Aubergine, Spinach & Chickpea Curry
A mildly spiced curry, that's easy to make and healthy, even the kids will love this one.
Ingredients
- 1 x 220g brown onion sliced
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 1 x thumb size piece of ginger peeled and grated
- 2 fat cloves of garlic minced
- 1 x 250g Aubergine cut into chunks
- 150 g spinach washed and patted dry with kitchen paper
- 1 x 400g tin of chickpeas drained and rinsed in cold water
- 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
- 2 tsp cumin seeds ground in a pestle and mortar
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 heaped tsp yellow mustard seeds
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp each sea salt and cracked black pepper
- 1 small handfull fresh coriander stems chopped, leaves left whole
To serve
- Plain natural yogurt
- Almond slivers
- Naan
- Coriander leaves
Instructions
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Heat 1 tbs of oil in a large sautee pan, add the onion and gently cook over a low to medium heat for about 10 minutes. The onions should be soft and light brown.
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Add the garlic and ginger and cook for about 1 minute, then add the spices and the chopped coriander stalks. Cook for another minute, until you can smell the spices. Be careful not to let the spices burn.
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Now add the remaining oil and the aubergine, cook for about 5 minutes until the aubergine takes on the colour of the spices. If the pan gets dry add a splash or two of water.
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Pour in the tin of tomatoes plus half a tin of water. Stir and then cover and leave to simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. After 10 minutes add the chickpeas, stir and cover and leave to simmer for another 5 minutes.
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When the aubergine is soft add in the spinach and cook until the spinach has wilted. Finish by stirring in the coriander leaves. Serve immediately with naan, basmati or brown rice, almonds, coriander leaves and a dollop of natural yogurt.
Need more aubergine recipes? Check out this Harissa Roasted Aubergine with Chickpeas & Quinoa or this Cumin Roasted Aubergine & Quinoa Salad
*calories are per portion and are approximate.
Definitely my sort of food Michelle,
Hope the weather is good for camping
So do I! Thanks Jean 🙂
I’ve been obsessed with curries recently! I love the eggplant/aubergine and chickpea combo in this. Thank you! 😀
Thanks Sarah, you can’t beat a good curry 😉
Now this is my kinda camping recipe! Actually, I’d love it anywhere anytime.
Thanks Kate 🙂
Oh wow, I would NEVER have thought of curry as camping friendly food, but you are so right! And I love camping too. There’s a particular park in Florida, where I grew up, that we’d go camping at. It had lovely swimming and friendly raccoons that you weren’t supposed to feed but had, of course, grown fat off of toasted marshmallows. But we would never have gone in the summer lol. Its about a million degrees in Fl right now! I hope you have fun. And now I must have aubergine curry for dinner. #craving
Jeni that park sounds amazing! The weather here is pretty dismal right now so I’m crossing everything in the hope it gets better lol. I hope you enjoy the curry x
I adore aubergines. This is the kind of meal I would love.
Thanks Christie, I hope you like it 🙂
You just combined two of my most favorite ingredients together in a curry (also my weakness) – I cannot wait to try this!
Thanks Tina, I hope you like it x
Well. . .you could alway combine camping and the love for luxury hotels and go glamping. When I lived in Kenya, we stayed in tented safari camps (with real beds. . .oriental rugs. . .the works) at least once a month. It was pure decadence and I wouldn’t do safari any other way.
As for this dish. . .it is so lovely. It certainly is glamping at its finest.
Thanks Lynn, gosh your glamping in Kenya sounds amazing! We have looked at glamping here but I would like for our girl to experience some real camping first as I’m sure she (and I) would find it hard to give up the luxury of glamping 😉
This looks delicious Michelle! Hope you have/had a great time camping! Whereabouts did you go? We went camping recently and made a pizza and breakfast tacos – pretty epic! LOVE camp food! xx
Thank you so much Sasha x We’ve not gone yet I’ll fill you in on all the details when we get back 😉 Those breakfast tacos sound amazing x