Curried Eggplant with Chickpeas and Spinach

I have Food Inc. on the brain.  And if you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend.  Oprah did a show about it last week, which I hope brings a lot of awareness to the topic, but I was lucky enough to see it last year at a screening here in Chicago and since then I felt like Johnny and I should dial down our meat consumption.  We had already layered in tofu to our diet, but I needed other options.  I think it was shortly after seeing the movie that I found this recipe and it's been a definite 'repeater'.  I won't preach too much because I know you are here for a recipe, not a lesson (not that I'm qualified to give one).  And a good one at that because regardless of how 'good' something is for us or our environment, we mostly want it to also taste good!  This one does.

I'm a curry fan.  And a bean fan.  And I absolutely love eggplant.  I don't know why, it's so simple, but I really really love it.  And Johnny is a huge lover of spinach so this recipe is perfect for us.  Plus it's a one-pan dinner, and who doesn't love that.  Wish I had discovered it in the years that I lived sans dishwasher.  

I grew up in a house where we would have three parts to our meal, or sometimes even just two.  Usually it was some type of meat, a version of potato and sometimes a vegetable.  This recipe totally defies that formula, being a one-pan meal.  Of course we did eat a lot of soups or stews too, and I love that concept of making just one recipe for dinner.  Not the salad, and the meat and the other side dish.  This is just... one.... recipe.  And of course this is very different from my childhood meals and maybe a lot of yours because it is meatless.  Which doesn't bother me because I am not a huge meat lover, but my husband is and he still loves this recipe.  Now don't get me wrong; I like a good piece of meat sometimes.  I have been on record saying that I could never ever give up processed meats.  Like prosciutto, salami, etc.  Terrible, right?  But delicious.  You know you agree... So don't worry, I'm not going to turn vegetarian on you and come up with weird tofurkey recipes and other 'fake' meat, but I will share some good vegetarian ones with you sometimes.  Like this one.

It is a relatively simple recipe and you may only have to buy one 'special' ingredient, the Madras curry powder.  I'm sure you could use regular curry powder if you can't find the Madras kind but I do think this is a bit more of a special flavor then just regular old curry powder.  And I think it's a bit spicier (Or maybe the label of "Hot Madras Curry Powder" clued me in, not sure).  I didn't have a hard time finding it either, mine is just the regular old McCormick brand and I got it at the normal grocery store.  The ginger also adds an incredible amount of flavor.

I've made this recipe several times.  The recipe said to serve it with plain yogurt, which I thought was weird.  But I still gave it a shot, except I used Greek style yogurt because that's what I had and always buy.  And it went perfectly.  You cook the beans and the eggplant until they get caramelized, then wilt the spinach and the curry flavoring on the vegetables and the beans mix with the yogurt and make kind of a *sauce*. Yes, that is a magic word for me.  (If confused, see blog title.)  Then I took that and put it on the naan that I bought (just frozen from Trader Joes, but if you can't find naan I would just buy a pita and warm it up).  So good.  And you get a healthy dose of your protein from not only the beans, but also the yogurt.  Okay, I'm no nutritionist so I won't pretend to know that it is in any type of accurate healthy range, but I guess I'll just say in my book it was sufficient, but more importantly was delicious.  I can't wait to hear what you think.

Trish's Tips:  If you haven't used ginger before (but you all probably have by now, right) it's that gnarly weird root thing.  I think it's best to peel with the end of a spoon, although you could use a peeler.  The original recipe called for 1/2 cup of oil which I thought was kind of a lot so I dialed it back to 1/4 cup, which wasn't enough so I brought it back up to 1/3 cup and felt like that was the perfect amount.  You could dial it back a bit more if you like.  You definitely need it to caramelize and it won't without some amount of oil.

Curried Eggplant with Chickpeas and Spinach
Adapted from Food & Wine October 2009

Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves, minced
kosher salt
2 tsp Madras curry powder
1/3 cup canola oil
1 medium eggplant (about 1 1/2 lbs), cut into 1 to 1 1/2 inch cubes
1 lg onion, cut into 1/2 to 1 inch wedges
1 - 15 oz. can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup finely julienned fresh ginger
Freshly ground pepper
One 5-oz bag baby spinach
Warm naan and greek style plain yogurt, for serving

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425.  On a work surface, mash the garlic with a pinch of salt with the side of the blade of a large knife.  The coarseness of the salt will break it down until it is a paste.  In a small bowl mix the garlic paste with the curry powder and canola oil.  Put the eggplant, onion, chickpeas and ginger in a large roasting pan and pour the garlic/curry/oil mixture over.  Season with salt and pepper and toss well.  Spread the vegetables in an even layer and roast for 30 minutes, stirring once or twice until the eggplant and onion are tender.  (the length of time will depend on the size you cut your veggies).  Stir in the spinach and roast until just wilted, about 2 minutes.  Serve with warm naan and yogurt.