This Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod makes a gently spiced chickpea stew from Afghanistan that also gets called an Afghan chickpea curry due to the combination of spices intrinsic to so many curries. It’s richly spiced, creamy courtesy of a garlic yoghurt sauce stirred through the stew and drizzled on top, and fragrant thanks to a shower of fresh coriander or parsley. Dial up the heat with fresh green chillies if you like, and serve it on steamed basmati rice with a side salad or scoop it up with naan.
You’ll love this Afghan chickpea stew recipe with garlicky yoghurt if you enjoy a Punjabi chickpea curry but find it a tad too spicy; they’re two of my favourite chickpea recipes but this chickpea stew is the one I cook when I crave comfort over heat. I’ve been making this more gently-spiced chickpea stew from Afghanistan more regularly since I’ve been back in Australia taking care of my elderly mum, who can’t eat spicy food.
Terence and I have long been lovers of chickpea stews, soups and curries. For many years this richly-spiced Moroccan chickpea soup Terence learnt to make in Marrakech was on rotation. And I love to linger over bowls of this hearty harira. It’s hard not to be chickpea devotees after almost a decade in the Middle East, where chickpeas star in so many Middle Eastern dishes, from a classic creamy hummus to brothy hummus balila.
It was in the Middle East where we first tried this Afghan chickpea stew after moving to Abu Dhabi in 1998. It was at a simple backstreet eatery, popular with taxi drivers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, that had been suggested by our new Indian colleague whose job was to help us set up home and settle in fast. Peter’s recommendations included local eating spots that would became favourites.
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Looking for more inspiration? We’ve got thousands of recipes in our archives from around the world, from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. And note: you can save your favourites in a private account by clicking on the heart on the right of any post. Now let me tell you more about this Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod.
Afghan Chickpea Stew Recipe with Garlic Yoghurt Sauce
I love the current iteration of this Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod that I’m sharing here. The recipe has gone through countless revisions in recent years – from dramatic adjustments as I came across new-to-me recipes in old cookbooks to small tweaks to test slightly different spice combinations. It’s not as oily or as salty as the chickpea stew in that Abu Dhabi eatery and tastes more like home-cooked comfort food.
Although it has to be said that, despite becoming a restaurant staple in the Afghan diaspora, this chickpea stew started out as a home-cooked classic that those unpretentious eateries in our Abu Dhabi neighbourhood served up to homesick customers. It was an affordable filling meal that satisfied hunger pains as much as pangs of nostalgia, and a longing for home and the cooking of wives and mothers, and meals with loved-ones.
There was no public transport when we lived in Abu Dhabi, and during our five years in the UAE capital, Terence and I caught cabs to and from work every day, as well as to do the shopping and go out to dinner. I can’t tell you how many times we hopped into a taxi to find a teary-eyed driver from Afghanistan or Pakistan listening to a cassette tape his wife had made and posted him. It broke my heart every time.
We didn’t speak Dari, Pashto or Balochi, or Punjabi, Sindhi or Urdu. It was challenging enough learning a little Arabic. But I knew that the women on the tapes were sharing news from home, and from the levels and tones of their voices, whether kids could be heard playing in the background, or family members shouting out greetings, how everyday or intimate the content of the cassettes were.
The second we showed an interest – pointing to the cassette player and asking if that was his wife and kids – the driver’s eyes would light up, he’d hit pause, pull down the visor, and pull out well-thumbed photos of his loved ones, which he’d pass to us in the back. There’d be a portrait of a beloved wife, maybe a wedding photo, pics of kids playing, perhaps a formal photo of the extended family, staged by a professional photographer.
Drivers who spoke English shared stories, while those who didn’t would give Terence a thumbs up when he correctly guessed the ages of the kids, and place a hand on his heart when I complimented his wife with a “Helwa!”, which means ‘beautiful’ in Arabic.
Over time, we learnt that it was typical for taxi drivers to spend years away from their families, working abroad in Arabian Peninsula countries. While most drivers hailed from rural villages, had little education, and few options for the future if they’d stayed at home, others had been professionals, from teachers to engineers, yet claimed they could earn more money driving a cab in Abu Dhabi than repairing computers in Kabul or building bridges in Balochistan.
Some hadn’t seen family in decades: middle aged parents were now elderly, grandparents had passed away, newborn babies were in their teens. They didn’t want to waste their hard-earned savings on flights that could be spent on their children’s education, on building a big new house, or starting a small business when they eventually saved enough to finally return home.
Understanding that context, the food from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India that was dished out in those simple eateries in the dusty backstreets of downtown Abu Dhabi, was so much more than sustenance, it was a connection to homes and loved-ones they’d long ago left and longed to return to. As new expats, we didn’t yet understand that. But it wouldn’t take long.
Chickpea stews appeared as qurma-e nakhod on menus – ‘qurma’ means stew or sauce and ‘nakhod’ chickpeas – and they were either very oily like a curry or, at vegetarian eateries, more brothy like a soup. We didn’t make the dish at home when we lived in Abu Dhabi and later Dubai. If we were too tired after work to eat out, we’d order takeaway or home delivery, which was quick and cheap, and also meant we could open a bottle of wine.
It wasn’t until years after leaving the Middle East that I began craving the food I missed, and then it was Arabic mezze, Moroccan tajine and Indian curry. It was one evening while cooking Christine Manfield’s Punjabi chickpea curry that I craved a bowl of the more gently spiced stew.
My first source for an Afghan chickpea stew recipe was the 1979 edition of the Complete Middle East Cookbook by Tess Mallos, a heavy tome of a cookbook I’d grown up with as a child of parents who loved to cook cuisines from around the world, which was the fashionable thing to do in Sydney in the Seventies. (Mum and dad also had a beachside French restaurant when I was a child, and later, when I was a teen, a holiday town takeaway.)
The legendary Tess Mallos was Australia’s expert on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cookery. Of Greek heritage, she travelled extensively throughout the region and here cookbooks were groundbreaking, covering the cuisines of everywhere from Armenia to Yemen. Her recipe for qurma/korma, translated as a ‘meat sauce’, includes stewing lamb or beef and ‘dal nakhud’, and half a cup of oil, and it takes me right back to those Abu Dhabi eateries.
I began tweaking that Afghan chickpea stew recipe after finding a pre-loved paperback cookbook called Afghan Cuisine by Afghan-American Nafisa Sekandari published in 2003 (updated in 2010) in an Australia charity shop. This is the book to seek out if you really want to understand qurma, which the author spells as ‘quarma’ and translates to ‘sauce’, as there are two chapters dedicated to both meat-based and vegetarian quarmas, with almost 40 quarma recipes.
But it’s two more recently published cookbooks that have influenced this Afghan chickpea stew recipe the most: the enchanting Parwana, Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen by Durkhanai Ayubi and her mother Farida Ayubi (a book I’ve been wishing for since Terence and I ate at their wonderful Parwana restaurant in Adelaide many years ago), and Michael Shaikh’s The Last Sweet Bite.
The Parwana recipe is simply titled ‘Nakhot’ (chickpeas) but in the intro is described as a “simple rustic chickpea curry that is enjoyed throughout Afghanistan…” and with one cup of sunflower oil, it’s most like that Afghan chickpea stew I first became smitten with in Abu Dhbai, but is much more richly spiced. I’ll tell you why below.
It’s Michael Shaikh, who lived and worked in Afghanistan for many years, and is sharing his Afghan friend’s recipe, who calls what I’ve long known as a qurma/kurma and specifically qurma-e nakhod, ‘saland-e nakhod’, and his is the only Afghan chickpea stew recipe that calls for the garlic yoghurt sauce to be stirred into the stew, as well as serving it on the side.
I’ll tell you more about both the exquisite Parwana and Michael Shaikh’s The Last Sweet Bite, which resonates with me on so many levels, in another post – or two! I have some tips to making this Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod.
Tips to Making this Afghan Chickpea Stew Recipe
Here are some tips to making this Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod, but first some tips on the key ingredients.
Ingredients
This key ingredient of this Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod are chickpeas, also called garbanzo beans, so let’s start there.
Chickpeas — Dried or Canned
This Afghan chickpea stew recipe calls for two cans of chickpeas (which I recommend you drain and rinse) which makes my idea of four servings (for average eaters), because you’ll be serving the stew with steamed basmati rice and naan (or other flatbread) and perhaps a salad on the side. But if you’re a big eater, don’t eat rice, and really want to eat this chickpea stew on its own, then it might only serve two.
Most Afghan chickpea stew recipes call for cooks to start with dried chickpeas, however, all guilt was assuaged after I discovered Afghan Cuisine in which Afghan-born Nafisa Sekandari assures readers that using canned chickpeas is perfectly okay.
If you do want to begin with dried chickpeas, then you’ll have to start the night before as dried chickpeas need to be soaked. Michael Shaikh’s recipe calls for two cups of dried chickpeas to be picked over for grit and broken/shrivelled skin, rinsed in a fine mesh sieve under cold running water, transferred to a big bowl, covered generously with water, and soaked overnight.
While I’ve eliminated a lot of high sodium processed food since my dangerously-high blood pressure diagnosis last year, and wherever possible I start cooking anything from scratch, including soaking dried legumes, I’ve been using canned chickpeas for a few reasons.
Firstly, the dried chickpeas I’ve used a few times since I’ve been back in Australia taste really terrible (old, perhaps); secondly, the sodium content of the canned chickpeas I use isn’t that high; and lastly, a lot of readers and friends (especially those working a couple of jobs and/or with families to feed) have told me they just can’t get organised enough or be bothered soaking chickpeas. And since I’ve been taking care of my mum, which is like taking care of a few kids, I get it; I didn’t before, but I do now.
Step-By-Step Process
This Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod is fairly straightforward to make, but here’s an overview of the steps for those of you who like them, otherwise head directly to the recipe.
Prep the Chickpeas
If you’re going to start with dried chickpeas (see above), then you’ll need to begin the night before and start with this step, otherwise, if using tinned chickpeas, start our Afghan chickpea stew recipe with the garlic yoghurt sauce.
Make the Garlic Yoghurt Sauce
Transfer the Greek yoghurt to a small bowl, mince the garlic into the bowl, stir to combine well, and taste. Adjust the garlicky yoghurt as you like, adding another clove of garlic and perhaps some salt, then cover and refrigerate.
Cook the Onion
To a large pan over medium-high heat, add the vegetable oil, heat until shimmering, add the diced onion, and fry, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, then reduce to medium heat.
Add Fresh Green Chilli (Optional)
Add the fresh green chilli if you’re using it, and if you’re not, skip to the next step. Stir to combine the green chilli with the onion and continue to cook until the onion begins to brown. If needed, if the pan is getting a little dry, just add a bit more oil.
Add the Spices
While the onion is cooking, add the spices to a small bowl and stir to combine. When the onion begins to brown, reduce the heat to low, add the spice mix, and stir to combine until fragrant.
Add the Tomato and Chickpeas
Stir in the diced fresh tomato and chickpeas, add 2 cups water, increase the heat to medium-high, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.
Simmer and Reduce the Stew
Pop the lid on the pan partially and simmer, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes or so until the chickpeas are soft and sauce has reduced and thickened into a stew; if too thick, add a little more water, stir, and continue to simmer.
Finish the Stew
When you’re ready to serve, remove from the heat, stir in a tablespoon (or two) of garlicky yoghurt, taste, and adjust to suit your palate, adding salt if needed. And, it should go without saying, adding another tablespoon of the garlic yoghurt sauce if you like.
Plate and Garnish
When you’re ready to serve, distribute the chickpea stew between plates or bowls, or, if you’re serving the dish at the centre of the table, scoop some steamed basmati rice into a big bowl, ladle the stew on top, drizzle iwith garlicky yoghurt, and shower with fresh coriander and chilli slices.
Serve the Chickpea Stew
Transfer the rest of the garlicky yoghurt to a bowl, sprinkle some dried mint on top, and serve with a classic Afghan salad and warmed naan or other flatbreads for scooping up the stew. I’m going to share recipes for an Afghan salad and Afghan naan bread soon.
Afghan Chickpea Stew Recipe with Garlic Yoghurt Sauce
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup Greek yoghurt - or other natural, plain, whole fat yoghurt
- 2 garlic cloves - minced, or more or less if you like
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil - or sunflower oil
- 1 large brown onion - finely diced, or red onion for sweetness
- 2 fresh green chillies - optional: divided, mild, medium or hot as you like, one finely diced, one sliced for garnishing
- 1 tbsp ground coriander
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ½ tsp cinnamon - or a cinnamon stick
- 1 large tomato - finely diced
- ½ tsp black pepper - freshly ground, or to taste
- 2 cans chickpeas - drained, rinsed
- 2 cups water - and more if needed
- salt and pepper - to taste; optional
- 1 cup fresh coriander leaves
- ½ tsp dried mint
Instructions
- Make the garlicky yoghurt sauce: transfer the Greek yoghurt to a small bowl, mince the garlic into the bowl, stir to combine well, taste, and adjust as you like, adding another clove of garlic and perhaps some salt. Cover and refrigerate.
- Cook the onion: to a large pan over medium-high heat, add the vegetable oil, heat until shimmering, add the diced onion, and fry, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, then reduce to medium heat.
- Add green chilli (if using): stir to combine with the onion and continue to cook until the onion begins to brown. If needed, add a little more oil.
- Add the spices: while the onion is cooking, add the spices to a small bowl and stir to combine. When the onion begins to brown, reduce the heat to low, add the spice mix, and stir to combine until fragrant.
- Add the tomato and chickpeas: stir in the diced tomato and chickpeas, add 2 cups water, increase the heat to medium-high, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.
- Simmer and reduce: pop the lid on the pan partially and simmer, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes or so until the chickpeas are soft and sauce has reduced and thickened into a stew; if too thick, add a little more water, stir, and continue to simmer.
- Finish the stew: when ready to serve, remove from the heat, stir in 2 tablespoons of garlicky yoghurt, taste, and adjust to suit your palate, adding salt if needed.
- Plate and garnish: when ready to serve, distribute between plates, or, if serving at the centre of the table, scoop some steamed basmati rice into a big bowl, ladle the stew on top, drizzle with garlicky yoghurt, and shower with fresh coriander and chilli slices.
- Serve: transfer the rest of the garlicky yoghurt to a bowl, sprinkle some dried mint on top, and serve with a classic Afghan salad and warmed naan or other flatbreads for scooping up the stew.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make this Afghan chickpea stew recipe for qurma-e nakhod or saland-e nakhod as we’d love to know how the dish turns out for you.
