Chicken and chickpea curry

The pleasure of reading my friends' blogs is that I get inspired by their creative ways of cooking and recipes which I might have not tried otherwise. When I saw a lovely Chicken and chickpea recipe cooked by Alison from Dragons and Fairy Dust, I knew I really fancied having a go. I have slightly adapted it to suit what I had in the kitchen, but it is a true homage to her creative curry (do check it out, just follow the link above).

Chicken and chickpea curry
Ingredients:
125g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
2 chicken breasts, sliced
1 small onion, finely chopped
2tbsp olive oil
2tsp coconut oil
1tsp tikka masala (I used Steenbergs tikka masala but any good curry spice will work in this recipe)
1/2tsp ground cumin
1/2tsp ground turmeric
1 medium carrot, sliced
1 packet of Cirio chopped tomatoes (390g)
1 tub of single cream (227g)
a handful of raisins
sea salt

If using dried chickpeas, soak them overnight in cold water (or don't bother with soaking and use tinned chickpeas). Drain the water, rinse the chickpeas, pour the hot boiling water over them to cover and cook simmering for an hour and a half. Keep checking the water levels.
Heat the oil in a large pan, add the sliced chicken breasts and onion, cook for about 10 minutes before adding the spices and sliced carrot, chopped tomatoes, single cream and a handful of raisins. Season with sea salt. Add the chickpeas to the curry. Bring to boil, then lower the heat and cook on low, simmering for half an hour.
Serve with basmati rice.

In this recipe I used one of Cirio tomato products - chopped tomatoes in Tetrapack. Just yesterday I posted a recipe for fruity pork stew which has its origins in the Mediterranean flavours. The curry recipe is obviously inspired by India. As you can see, tinned and/or Tetra-packed tomatoes from Cirio allow you to travel from one cuisine to another. Whether you fancy an Indian or Italian "fakeaway", a tin of tomatoes will come very handy. Great quality and authentic flavours.

Disclosure: I received a selection of Cirio products for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are mine.