I hope you’re enjoying recipes from some wonderful and talented food bloggers from around the world featured here on Steamy Kitchen! Today, I’d like to introduce to you Shulie of Food Wanderings, who is of Indian Jewish ancestry, born and raised in Israel, and has been living here in the U.S. for over half of her life.
What has always caught my eye about her recipes is that they are healthy and naturally light, just with use of fresh ingredients. I love how she features the ingredient collage for each recipe – I could just frame each one of them and hang on the wall of my kitchen.
Shulie is featuring Indian Cabbage with Crispy, Crunchy Chickpeas, a recipe she’s adapted from her Mom. Though make sure you check out some of her other recipes like her Mom’s Best Kept Secret Dahl Recipe, Mache, Blood Orange and Pomegranate Salad in Citrus, Sumac and Champagne Vinaigrette and Medley of Cherry Tomatoes Salad. ~jaden
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Recipes and photos by Shulie of Food Wanderings
The dish is super simple with a twist of a delicious crunch. I don’t recall having it in my childhood, but my mom on skype impatiently scolded me and said, “you just didn’t like it.” Growing up, it was my brother’s, the third out of six kids, favorite. How impossible I didn’t like it?! Especially since I like everything cabbage!
This recipe is full of flavor and the added crunch of slightly fried chickpeas gives this dish its extra uniqueness. The chickpeas are crispy from the outside with a soft inside. In this dish you get your veggie and a toss of protein for contrast and a balanced nutrition. How brilliant is that?!
The ingredients include cabbage, onion, ginger, garlic, chili pepper (if you’d like), chickpeas, turmeric and garam masala.
Frying the chickpeas gives them a crispy, crunchy texture. You can certainly skip this step and just added drained canned chickpeas.
All of the aromatics: onion, garlic, chili pepper, ginger fry together until softened.
Until they look like this:
The finished dish….
Indian Cabbage with Crispy, Crunchy Chickpeas Recipe
Ingredients
- handful of canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans) or dried chickpeas
- Hot water to immerse and cover an inch above surface
- salt to taste
- garam masala spice - just a sprinkle (optional)
- 4 tablespoons canola oil
- 1 onion, peeled and quartered
- 2 fresh green chillies, stemmed and roughly chopped
- 2 inch section of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1/2 head of small/medium cabbage, halved and sliced (see photo for reference)
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 6 tablespoons water
- salt to taste (about 1/4-1/2 teaspoon)
- 1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro
Instructions
- If using canned chickpeas, drain, rinse well and rub with paper towels to remove some of the skin. If using dried chickpeas: pour hot water over chickpeas and let soak over night. Press each chickpea between thumb and index finger to take skin off and dry on paper towel.
- In a large pot, saute pan or a wok (something with high sides as you will be tossing the chickpeas), heat up oil on medium-low, toss in chickpeas and fry for couple minutes while mixing. It will sizzle and achieve a slight golden sheen. Taste one, it will be crunchy from outside and soft inside. With a slotted spatula take out of pot/wok and drain on towel paper lined plate, sprinkle with salt and garam masala if you wish and set aside. Reserve the oil and the pot for the next step in recipe.
- Put the onion in a food processor and pulse until consistency is of finely grated onion. Add to same oil we fried the chickpeas in, turn the heat to medium-low and let cook until translucent to slightly golden, about 3 minutes.
- Back to the food processor (no need to clean) - add the chillies, garlic and ginger. Pulse for a few seconds, scrape with a rubber spatula from the edges and pulse again for a finer chop. Add this mixture to onion in the pot and saute for an additional 3 minutes until very fragrant.
- Add the cabbage, turmeric, salt and six tablespoons of water and toss cabbage in the pot until slightly wilted.
- Plate cabbage and sprinkle with fried chickpeas. Garnish with a touch of cilantro if desired. I show it with samosas in the picture which I will feature in the future. Can be served with naan or any other Indian bread and chutneys.
Notes
Did you try this recipe? Please leave a star rating in the recipe card below and leave a review in the comment section! I always appreciate your feedback and I know other readers do, too!
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I am confused about the directions: if you start from dried chickpeas, you just soak them over night? You don’t have to cook them prior to frying?
Thanks for the guidance! I dont want to screw up the recipe, it looks yummy!
I use canned chickpeas. I never have time to soak chickpeas!
So happy to find this recipe right now! In last week’s organic veg delivery, we got a HUGE head of green cabbage, and I was at a loss for what to do with it. We love Indian food, and this will be a great addition to tomorrow night’s dinner!
The recipes sound great,as I write I have some chickpeas in the oven cooking.
Looking forward to eating them for the first time.
Dave Riley
Thank you everyone for all the comments. Loved knowing that some of you know this dish in one variation or another.For those of you who are new to this dish I was happy to hear you loved the contrast of the chickpeas and the crunch, Hope all are having a great week so far!
Dear Kim, Just google Garam Masala recipe and you can make your own combination if you cannot get a premixed one at your local supermarket. You can also use for a twist a cajun mix if that is more accessible.
Thank you Miri. Just saw your post and Jaden is right you are truly full of sunshine! Congrats on all the exciting prospects!!
Loved this cabbage with crunchy chickpeas . We make a similar cabbage with fresh green peas but the crunch of the fried chickpeas would be wonderful…
Looks like another great dish- thanks for sharing! And great photography as always!
I just can’t get enough of chickpeas, I could eat them in soup, with crispy bacon, simply sautéed with rosemary and of course with cabbage!
This looks so good. I love anything with cabbage and with fried chickpeas..yummy. Thanks for posting.
That looks delicious and frying those chickpeas sounds brilliant to me! I never used to like cabbage as a child (it could have something to do with my mum’s lack of cooking skills…!) but I love it now and this is just a dish waiting to be made!
You had me at fried chickpeas! I’m glad that even more people get to meet you Shulie via SteamyKitchen. I’m biased of course, but I think you’re great AND you just happen to create wonderful dishes and take wonderful, clean, crisp pictures.
Great exposure for you and gorgeous photos. Congratulations, Shulie!
Shulie – so glad @chowandchatter introduced us on Twitter. Love your unique recipes and beautiful photos. I am trying to broaden my use of different spices in my everyday cooking and your recipes and @mbhide and @indiansimmer are so inspiring for me. And I love the idea of fried garbanzos. Haven’t tried it yet but I’m guessing the family will enjoy them more that way than when I toss them plain on a salad.
Jaden – a great series to share with your readers and a great choice of guest poster in @foodwanderings
Thanks to both of you.
Hi Jaden,
I love coming back to your blog and am continuously inspired by your energy and creativity. I have just awarded 10 fellow bloggers with the Stylish Blogger Award and posted a link to your recent food blog post. I know you are a highly successful writer and blogger.
I have offered you an HONORARY Stylish Blogger Award from my award page.
Thank you for all your inspiration!
Regards,
Bonnie
http://partychef.typepad.com/blog/2011/03/stylish-blogger-awards-.html
This looks delicious and I am definitely going to try it! I find I am unable to get garam masala here in the middle of Iowa, so I am going to need to mail order some. (I have a couple other recipes saved which also call for it.)
Yum! I also just posted a recipe with crispy chickpeas: http://themusingbouche.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/spicy-crispy-baked-chickpeas-garbanzos/
I’m a huge cabbage fan though, and will definitely give this a try. Thanks!
Thank you so much everyone. You rock my friends and all the new faces I got to know thanks to Jaden, thank you and hello!
I am so happy to see one of my favorite bloggers, Shulie, on your site! Shulie this looks incredible. I love cabbage and now I have a new way to eat it. 🙂 I love how the chickpeas are fried. What a great idea!
Now this looks so yummy! Gonna give it a try. Thanks for the recipe Shulie!
This has convinced me to actually try eating cabbage again – I’m not normally a fan, but I love the mixture of textures and the Indian flavors. Shulie’s my go-to for Indian inspiration, so I’m really glad to see her here doing what she does best!
So LOVE seeing Shulie here! What a gorgeous recipe. Can’t wait to give it a go!
Yay to see Shulie here. Her cookings as fun and infectious as her tweets. This is an interesting take on cabbage! YUM!!
So good to see Shulie here. She is fabulous. Such a simple and great recipe it is.
I’m so happy to see Shulie being featured here, she’s the best. I always enjoy reading about the history and meaning behind the dishes she prepares, and she’s such a sweetheart too.
good one !
Shulie strikes once again! Super easy and so delicious. Awesome pictures S! So glad to see you here. 🙂 Fifi! 🙂
Oh yum! I love Shulie and all her recipes are just so comforting and take me back home. This one’s no different! My mom used to make something very similar to this and now this recipe makes me wanna try her recipe again!
Wow, what an Awesome combination of Cabbage & Crispy Chickpeas! I absolutely love Chickpeas, just today I made a Chickpeas,Fennel, Olives & Preserved Lemons Tagine with a homemade Moroccan Khobz Bread! Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe Shulie!
Another winner. Sooner or later, I’ll be cooking mostly Indian food in my kitchen, thanks Shulie.
This is wonderful, Shulie! I love dishes calling for ingredients so readily available! Your recipes open my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities.
Cabbage in a Filipino household won’t be limited to Cocido and Pansit anymore!
This cabbage looks awesome!
That really looks beautiful..Love chickpeas, love cilantro, but have never tried them together…
So excited to see my friend Shulie; while I admit some trepidation with Indian cuisine I love her posts and some of the mystery (along with thinking I would need a cabinet filled with unique ingredients) is gone. Looks beautiful, as always.
Two of my favorite ingredients, Shulie–cabbage and chick peas. But so different from any Italian-inspired dish that I would be likely to come up with. It sounds so fresh with the ginger and cilantro–just the sort of pick-me-up to get us through this chilly spring.
Very nice post, Shulie! Everything you make and photograph always looks so yummy!
I love when I come upon recipes that feature the ingredients already present in my pantry:) This looks like another good one, Shulie! I have not met cabbage I did not like, and giving the good ol’ head an Indian flair will bring something new in my kitchen!
WOW…this is so similar to the recipe my mom makes. it is one of my favorite ways to eat cabbage. I recently made it and took photos…but yet have to publish it in my blog…it will hopefully happen sooner than later. I love the photos here!
Love the simplicity of the dish and the colors. I love cabbage–glad to be shown another way to prepare it. 🙂
I love cabbage and this dish looks delicious. I love the use of the garam marsala, it must add lots of flavor. Can’t wait to try it!
Thank you for your recipe, Shulie! My kids are in love with cabbage right now. They weren’t so much before so now I am on the look-out for more recipes 🙂 We love chickpeas as well so can’t wait to make this. So amazing you’re featured here – Congrats!
This dish looks amazing Shulie, I always enjoy your photography too, so pretty!
What a beautiful dish (from a beautiful lady – Shulie, you’re a gem)! My boyfriend and I have been trying to eat healthier lately, and this looks like the perfect way to do that without having to give up flavor. I will definitely try this one soon.
Beautiful post as always Shulie. Love simple, fresh dishes and this fits the ticket. Hm, have to try crispy chick peas, yum.
Thanks Jaden for the feature, I did say you are one banging lady via email so here it goes even though it’s not twitter!! Thanks so much again, loved doing it and it seems like everything looks 100% better on your site!!
Thanks Kiran, Miss Kay so nice to meet you and Bri, Soma my friends!!
So nice to see Shulie on this site. Another great recipe from my friend!
Shulie love this light flavorful dish. esp the ginger and the green chili.
Wow! This looks amazing – the mix of spices looks divine, and I love the idea of frying chickpeas. I shall be trying this out as soon as I get my hands on a cabbage.
MMmmm…. yummy! Cabbage and garbanzo’s are Indian staple produce 🙂