This savory, herbal Trinidadian chickpea-and-potato curry is an island adaptation of a common north Indian dish. It comes from the Trini cooking teacher Dolly Sirju, who dislikes comparisons of Trinidadian food to Indian. “India is totally different than Trinidad,” she says. This dish swaps out tomatoes, ginger and whole spices for Madras curry powder and waves of cilantro-like flavor. Serve it with steamed white rice or roti flatbread.
Rinse and dry the pot. Peel the potato, and cut it into 3/4-inch chunks. In the pot, heat the oil over medium heat, add the curry powder and turmeric and stir, until very aromatic and just starting to darken. Carefully add the potatoes and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes. Add the chickpeas and cook, stirring, until you get a little sticking on the bottom of the pot, 3 to 5 minutes. Add a little water to scrape up the stuck parts, then add water to cover by 1/2 inch. (I use the chickpea cooking water, but Dolly Sirju prefers fresh water.) Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt.
04Bring the pot to a vigorous simmer, shy of a full boil, and cook until the potatoes are tender and the chickpeas are soft, about 30 minutes. Season with salt to taste. Chop some more culantro. Serve the curry with long grain white rice or roti, and garnish with chopped culantro.