Roasted Eggplant Chickpea Curry

This slow cooker recipe benefits from long, slow cooking to allow the flavours to infuse. Cook ahead of time or in the slow cooker overnight. This is also a great budget friendly meal and freezes well. Although there’s a few steps, most of them are roasting or slow cooking, so the actual prep time is quite short!

Ingredients

• 2 x medium eggplants
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion – diced
• 1 red capsicum –  finely chopped
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 3 tsp minced garlic
• 2 tsp fresh ginger (or ½ tsp ground ginger)
• 1 tsp garam masala (can use curry powder if you don’t have garam masala)
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can coconut milk
• 2 cans chickpeas

Rice and coriander to serve (optional).

Method

1. Chop the eggplant into 2 -3 cm chunks. Place in a roasting dish, drizzle over in olive oil, and bake in the oven at 180 degree calcium for 1 hour or until golden brown
2. Dice the onion and de-seed and chop the capsicum into small pieces
3. Heat a large frypan or oven safe skillet with a lid, add 2 tbsp olive oil, then saute the onion for 5 minutes or until translucent. Now stir in the spices (ground coriander, smoked paprika, turmeric and garam masala). You can add a tbsp of water if the mixture gets dry. Add garlic and ginger, and cook all together for 1 minute.
4. Add the canned tomatoes, coconut milk and chickpeas. Stir in together the add the roasted eggplant.
5. Transfer the whole curry to the slow cooker and cook on high heat option for 6 – 8 hours. Note: if you have an oven safe skillet, you can put the lid on and transfer to the oven, cook for 3 – 4 hours on 160 degrees Celsius.

Serve with cooked rice (or quinoa!) and picked coriander leaves.