Macheesmo

I’ve been making a lot of stir-fries lately. There’s a lot of reasons for this. For starters, a stir-fry is an awesome way to sneak fresh veggies into a meal in the colder months. This Chickpea Stir Fry features canned chickpeas (always available) and hearty kale which is generally easy to find year round. I added some zucchini as well even though it isn’t in season right now. You can make this chickpea stir fry your own, of course!

The second reason why I’ve been digging stir fry dishes lately is because they’re very fast and frankly I’ve been pretty darn busy these days! So a meal that’s delicious, fast, and reheats well the next day is what I’m looking for.

Plus, I think just looking at this chickpea stir fry will make you healthier!

You can, of course, just serve this with some rice and you’ll all set, but I wanted to some whole wheat flatbread (chapati) which also worked great for this meal.

Chickpea and Kale Stirfry

by Nick

Serves:

Serves 4

Prep Time:

30 mins

Cook Time:

30 mins

Total Time:

1 hr

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A simple chickpea stir fry with fresh kale, zucchini, and cumin seeds and lots of lemon. I served it over rice or a homemade wheat flat bread (chapati).

Ingredients

1 large bunch of kale

1 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 medium zucchini

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lemon, juice only

1 Teaspoon cumin seed (optional)

Pinch of salt and pepper

Whole Wheat Chapati (From Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

2 1/4 Cups whole wheat flour

1 Cup all-purpose flour

1 Teaspoon salt

1 Cup warm water (might need a bit more if dough is dry)

2 Tablespoons minced chives (optional)

Instructions

Chapati:
1) Mix flour, chives, and salt together, then add water and bring into a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for five minutes. It should be a really sturdy dough.

2) Cover dough and let rest for 30 minutes, then cut into 10 even pieces.

3) Roll out each piece of dough and cook it in a cast iron skillet or any heavy pan with a drizzle of oil over high heat for 15 seconds. Then flip it and cook for another 30 seconds until the bread is slightly charred and puffed. Repeat with all of the pieces.

For Stir fry:
1) Prep all your ingredients. In a large skillet, add a drizzle of oil and add chickpeas. Cook for a few minutes until chickpeas get crispy, then add cumin and cook for another minute. Remove chickpeas.

2) Add zucchini to pan and cook for a minute until it starts to soften. Then add kale and garlic and cook until kale starts to wilt, about 30 seconds.

3) Add chickpeas back in pan and lemon juice. Season with salt and serve immediately with flatbread.

Nutrition Info

Making the Chapati

I occasionally make some flatbreads on Macheesmo (The scallion bread in this post is great also.) For some reason people are scared to try these, but they’re really easy to make and very tasty. The whole wheat flour in this variety makes it almost nutty.

To start it, just mix together both your flours with your salt and chives if you’re using them. Then stir in your water and knead the dough a few times to form a pretty sturdy dough.

Turn this out onto a floured surface and cover it with a towel. Let it rest for 30 minutes at a minimum or at the most a few hours. This will let the flour relax a bit and make the dough a lot easier to work with.

Then chop it up into about 10 even pieces. I kind of just eyeballed it.

Then roll out each piece of dough into roughly a 8 to 10 inch circle. It should be pretty thin.

Cooking the Chapati

To cook this flat bread, get a cast iron skillet or very heavy pan over high heat with a drizzle of neutral oil (like canola or something). Once the pan is hot, add your rolled out dough to the pan and count to about 15 (you’ll probably have to do one at a time). Then flip it over. Let it cook for another 30 seconds to a minute and it should puff up a bit and also get slightly charred.

Like this!

How to Make the Chickpea Stir Fry

You don’t really need a wok to cook this stir-fry but you have one, you can obviously use it. Any large pan will work fine though!

As with most stir-fries, it’s very important to prep all your ingredients. Roughly chop your kale, mince your garlic, and drain and rinse your chickpeas.

The thing about this Chickpea Stir Fry is that all the ingredients need different times to cook so if you just throw everything in at the same time you won’t get the best results.

To start, you need to cook the chickpeas since they’ll take the longest to cook. Add a teaspoon of neutral oil to a hot pan (or wok) and once it’s very hot, add your drained and rinsed chickpeas. Let them cook for a few minutes until they start to crisp up. If you’re using cumin seeds, add those to the chickpeas with about a minute left.

The chickpeas should be a bit crispy and charred. Take your chickpeas out of the pan while you cook the rest of your stir-fry.

Next, I cooked my zucchini which took about a minute. Then add the kale and garlic and cook for another 30 seconds or so until the kale begins to wilt a bit. Finally add all your chickpeas back to the stir-fry and add your lemon juice to pan. It’ll sizzle a lot and smell delicious!

Serve it up immediately over either rice or the whole wheat flat bread!

I ate this Chickpea Stir Fry with the flat bread on day one and with rice on day two. Turns out that the flat bread doesn’t keep really well so eat it as soon as possible!

I ate mine with some hot sauce, but it was good as-is also. The lemon flavor with the kale is fantastic and the chickpeas add great texture.

Fast, simple, and healthy! What more could you ask for?!

Here are a few other great stir fry recipes!

• Kimchi Stir Fry
• Beef Szechuan Noodles
• Thai Spaghetti Squash with Peanut Sauce
• Honey Garlic Chicken Stir Fry from Dinner at the Zoo