A gorgeous Chickpea, Mango and Coconut Curry
First published in February 2014 and re-priced this week
Making it up as I go along
I have had a lovely play in the kitchen today and amongst other things, I made this chickpea, mango and coconut curry. It is gorgeous!
I got an order from Approved Food this week which included some large tins of mango pulp (Edit, that was in 2014 – and I’ve still got some!) . I wanted to make a main dish with it, rather than a sweet one, so I had a bit of a google and a think and decided to do this.
I had the last of a box of coconut milk powder also from Approved Food to use up, some chick peas I had previously cooked sitting in the freezer, some spinach in there and plenty of spices.
Make it even cheaper!
You could well get the ingredients cheaper than shown in the recipe.
I had tins of mango pulp from AP for 25p, so 6p
Coconut milk for 49p, so 24p
Dried chick peas from the Indian shop, about 25p
Total of 91p or 23p a portion
Just these 3 ingredients bought cheaper has halved the price per portion!
I used a general, mild, curry powder from Rajah that was fine.
If you are using mySupermarket to buy the tin of mango, (it’s what I use to price recipes) it doesn’t show up unless you search for ‘tinned tropical fruit’!
The spices here can be absolutely anything that you have. Any general curry powder spice mix would be fine, or a mix of coriander, cumin and turmeric, or a tblsp of a curry paste from a jar.
If you have any, a sprinkle of fresh coriander would be lovely, or mint
Instead of the chickpeas, you could use any of the firm lentils, (the green/brown ones), soya beans (dried or green ones), a mix of root vegetables, some frozen mixed veg, a couple of chicken thighs, a couple of frozen white fish fillets. It would be a bit of a splodgy mix, but you could use the red lentils. And of course, any combination of these too.
You could substitute a tin of broken mandarin segments for the mango. You can use either coconut milk powder or a tin of coconut milk, or even some coconut cream.
Another one of those very variable recipes
Even more coconut milk powder
I absolutely loved this, so much so, that I went back on to Approved Food to get some more coconut milk powder. I bought 20, yes you did read that right!, 20 boxes at 75p each, and some more mango. Both daughters will be getting some of this 
I need to freeze the rest of the tin of mango. It says it’s pulp, but it’s completely smooth, tastes really nice just from a spoon. Would be lovely frozen just as it is to make mango sorbet, stirred through yogort, maybe freeze that too to make frozen mango yogort. You could pour it over fruit salad, or ice cream, whizz it into a milk shake, lots of things really.
As I was reading about recipes that use mango or coconut powder, I came across several things that said that as long as you have a source of Vitamin C, you can live on just coconuts. Link here, and here, and here is a link about a man who founded an entire cult eating just coconuts, with disastrous results! I am intrigued by the idea of eating just coconuts, as I had never heard it before. I am wondering if more coconut is a good idea on a diet that minimises expense, although a lot of the good stuff is in the water inside a whole coconut. That is packed with vitamins and minerals.
Ingredients
- 480 g chickpeas This is 2 tins, drained. 66p for 2 tins. 250g dried, soaked and cooked, £1.15/500g, 57p
- 100 g onion chopped, £1/kg, 10p
- 200 g mango pulp Kesar £1.70/850g, 40p , or use fresh mango and mash it
- 400 ml coconut milk 50p
- 200 g spinach frozen, £1.25/850g, 30p
- 1 tbslp curry powder 75p/100g, 11p
- 1 tbsp olive oil or any other fat you want to use
Instructions
- I used a general, mild, curry powder from Rajah that was fine.
- Sauté the onion in a little oil, add the spices and sizzle them to bring out the flavour. Spices are often oil soluble, not water soluble, so you get the best flavour by cooking them in oil.
- Add everything else and simmer gently for a few minutes.
- Taste. Add a tsp salt and a tsp pepper. Stir very well and taste again. Does it need more salt, or pepper, or curry spice?
- And that's it, job done. Easy wasn't it!
- We had ours with a Nan, 4p each, or you could use value rice for 3p or 4p each, or both of course
Glad you liked it, I love it too!
I’ve got a lot of time for Jack, love her blog
Just had to let you know this was so lush! My DP loved it and moaned his way through it lol! Thank you for sharing and thanks to Ms Jack Monroe for recommending your great site.
Great! Glad you liked it. There are lots of different things you can put in to ring the changes too
This is absolutely gorgeous!! Everyone loved it, my little boy said it was the best done EVER!
Don’t worry just realised I can obviously just blend it lol
Could you use an actual mango instead of the pulp?
My mango pulp didn’t come in my supermarket home delivery
That probably only means that I’m the same age, or thereabouts, as your brother!
Do you know what, my brother quoted the exact same book when I was wondering out loud to him about the possibility of living solely on coconuts! Small world
Where I live, mangos are plentiful and delicious. So I shall definitely be trying this delicious sounding curry. One thing I’ve learned from you is not to be afraid of combining unusual ingredients, unusual in the sense that you don’t often think of mixing up certain flavors. I shall try and be more adventurous. Re the coconut, everyone here says how good coconut water (from green unripe coconuts) is for you. Full of minerals, potassium, vit. B and a little vit C. In the book “Papillon” (very popular in the 70’s), Henri Charrier tells how he was able to survive on a virtually starvation diet in prison because a comrade popped a small piece of coconut into his cup of water.
I am finding a few more ideas via Google. They will need to be frugalised to fit here, but I think I am going to be able to do some more recipes using mango and coconut
Lovely that your son liked it so much 🙂
Hi Leslie, After making your lovely curry last night (which my son said was like a restaurant meal!) and taking delivery of 8 tins of mango pulp I had another think about savoury recipes. I think your best bet might be Caribbean or South American dishes. I used to make a lovely Caribbean stew with sweet potato, plantain and rum which I think would work with some mango. Also, a quick google came up with a beef and mango stew which could maybe be adapted and a Brazilian Feijoada with mango. hope that helps.
I don’t have any more recipes but having just ordered a few tins from Approved Food I googled and found a couple of interesting looking sauce/ salsa and soup recipes. And for sweet things there were lots of delicious looking recipes on the holy cow vegan blog here: http://holycowvegan.net/all-recipes
Do you have any other savoury, main meal type ideas?
I had no idea you could get tinned mango pulp – lassi and all sorts of good things here I come!
Well that recipe made me rush off to place my first order with Approved Food for a couple of years. I shall be making it later this week.
My favourite recipe using mango puree is lassi. I mix roughly equal amounts of puree and plain yogurt with a pinch of ground cardamom. Lovely.