Bye Bye Blues..A Quick and Spicy Bean Dish!

      I have a small confession to make. I love trick vegetables. You know what I'm talking about, the orange cauliflower, the red squash, the black garlic. So you can imagine my surprise and delight when the gang at Lunita Farm showed me a basket of dark purple green beans at the Saturday Farmers Market.
    I'd never seen anything like them before and of course I had to have them. I whipped out my change purse, and impulse buyer that I am, plunked down my two bucks on the barrel head.
    They looked so pretty that at first all I wanted to do was stare at them. Pretty purple beans! But I knew I had to cook them, and quickly, because beans are best fresh and after a day or so in the fridge you're playing dice with the bean universe.
    It seemed no matter how hard I thought, I couldn't come up with a bean recipe worthy of these little gems. So I didn't use a green bean recipe. I had a Fava bean recipe from Michelin-starred Indian chef Atul Kochhar,  author of the cookbook  Indian Essence. I thought if this would work with Fava Beans why not with these quirky little not-green beans. I decided to give it a try. This is my adaptation.

     
Start out with 1 lb of green or mixed green and not-green beans.
 Cut them up into 1 inch pieces. The not-green beans have a heart of what else?...green! Set them aside.

  In a deep skillet or kadhai heat 2 Tbs of coconut or other vegetable oil. When the oil is hot toss in:
    1/2 tsp of nigella seed
    1/2 tsp of cumin seed

  When the seeds start to crackle add in:
    2 thinly sliced green chilies
     1 inch piece of ginger peeled and cut into thin strips

Stir it all around. In about 5 minutes or so the chilies will have gotten soft.
  Put in the sliced green and not-green beans.

Stir them around for a bit then add in:
  1/2 tsp of turmeric
  2 tsp of sugar
  Salt to taste

  Keep stirring them, turn the heat down a bit and let them cook until they're nice and al dente, about 10 minutes or so, and finally toss in:
  1 tsp of tamarind pulp. *Note: ( I use pre-soaked tamarind which is liquid, if you are using tamarind dried in block form, you will need 2 Tbs worth of tamarind pulp soaked in 6 Tbs of warm water.)

    Give it a final stir and scatter some julienned strips of raw ginger over the top. You're good to go.
These beans were amazing, sweet, pleasantly hot with a kick of ginger and ready to go in about 30 minutes. I probably could have even had them on the plate faster had I not been totally mesmerized by their beany beauty.

The only warning about these little beans, they don't keep their color. When cooked they become just ordinary green beans again, so if you want to show them off in their natural state either take a picture for your guests, or invite them over a few minutes earlier to help you cook!

Green Beans With A Coconut Coating!

Now that the NBA finals are over and done, it's back to normal food around here. I've temporarily put away the pizza and am taking advantage of all the great fruits and vegetables available right now. Let's put it another way. After the NBA finals I have to put the pizza away. Ok? Enough said.
 One vegetable that always seems to be on sale around here are green beans. As I've mentioned before, green beans weren't a biggie with me growing up. There's nothing very exciting about a grayish noodly hunk of bean. But crisp and green and all spiced up..oh my!
 I hit the bean bin the other day seeing as they were 99 cents a pound, and there's no number I like better than 99 cents unless it's 89 cents. I bought a pound of green beans, because at that price I couldn't not buy them. So, I had my beans. Now what to do?
       When I mentioned that I've developed my very own deeply scientific theory about men and dogs both loving anything covered in peanut product, I neglected to mention one thing. Coconut. And me. I'm cooking up another theory, this one involving women and their love of coconut.
     Just hear me out for a minute. There's coconut scented skin creams, coconut scented hair products and even though Alan hates it, every night I use a lip cream before I go to bed that contains coconut. Ok, to be honest here, the reason he hates it is that it's not just a coconut scented lip cream. It's a Hostess Snowball Flavored lip cream. And no, I'm not 5 years old. I just happen to like I mean love  coconut. So you can imagine my delight when I ran across a recipe involving my bargain beans and a coconut masala mixture. They had me at coconut.
     The secret about cooking with coconut is to get the wonderful flavor and not wind up serving something that tastes like a Mounds Bar. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The way this is accomplished is mixing a coconut masala, a spice mixture where coconut plays a big role but doesn't steal the entire show.
     This recipe is a two parter. The first round involves chopping the green beans into one inch lengths and pre-steaming them until they're just tender about 10 minutes or so.
While the bean are steaming, it's a great time to do the masala.

The masala involves 3 ingredients.
1 tsp of vegetable oil. I used coconut oil for this dish.
1/3 cup of channa dal
1 and 1/2 Tbs of coriander seed.
1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes
  Heat the oil and then toss in the coriander seed, channa dal and red pepper.

Stir fry it a bit until the spices and channa dal darken a bit. It should take just a minute or two.
Place the mixture into a blender or processor along with :
1/2 cup of grated dried, or fresh unsweetened coconut.

Grind it up a bit then add in 2 cups of water. Grind it to a puree.

When the green beans finish steaming set them aside. Pour the masala mix into a deep skillet or kadhai.

Heat it up, stirring it frequently. The masala mix will thicken  and dry as it cooks.

When the masala is dry, toss in the lightly steamed green beans.

Warm the beans and masala together.
  In a small cast iron skillet heat :
 1 Tbs of coconut oil
 When the oil is hot toss in:
1 tbs of finely chopped fresh ginger
1/2 Tbs of brown mustard seed

When the mustard seeds start to pop, drizzle the whole thing over the green bean dish.

Mix in the juice of one fresh lime and  3 Tbs of chopped fresh cilantro.

  I love this dish and ever since I fixed it, I cannot stop thinking of okra. To me this dish screams for okra. However, I haven't been able to find any lately so the okra hunt is now on.
  In closing, I can only add that if you have coconut lovers in your house, this masala paste will get them to eat almost anything!

Beans With Something Extra! Plus A Giveaway!

I never was a big green bean fan growing up. Mainly because the beans I was usually served weren't green at all but rather grey and flabby, the 90 pound weaklings of beans. They didn't look like they were full of vitamins and raring to go to work on my system but rather as though they'd spent their short bean life couch-surfing and watching Jersey Shore. They were skanky. What wouldn't be after being boiled for nearly an hour so they'd be "done" by the time they reached the table.
 When I started cooking Indian food 20 years ago, a new world of beans opened up to me; different varieties of beans, different ways of preparing them, none of which involved cooking them for too long.

 This last Meatless Monday, I decided to try green beans pan-sauteed in a chickpea flour nest.
  The original recipe comes from Yamuna Devis' book The Vegetarian Table: India. This is my adaptation of this dish.
  Here's what I did:
 Wash and cut 1 and 1/2 lb of green beans into 1 inch pieces. Chinese long beans would be ideal for this but if you can't get them, (I couldn't) any type of good summer beans will do. Set them aside.

 In a bowl mix together:
 1/2 cup gram flour (chickpea flour)
 2 tsps of garam masala
 1 tsp of salt
 1/2 cup of water
 Whisk it into a thick batter and set it aside.

In a deep skillet or kadhai heat 2 Tbs of vegetable oil.
 When the oil is hot toss in:
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
 When the mustard seeds start to pop, add in the green beans.
 Stir them around for a bit, then add in 1/2 cup of water.

 Turn down the heat, put a cover on the pan and  cook them for about 10 minutes or so till they are just tender.
 Take the lid off the pan and pour the chickpea batter around the outside of the beans in a ring.

 Let the batter firm up to a pancake-like texture.
Then drizzle 1 tbs of butter or ghee over the beans.

Sprinkle 3 Tbs of chopped fresh cilantro over the whole thing and gently stir everything together so that the batter forms crisp little pieces of chickpea goodness.

Add a bit of salt if you wish and serve it up.
 The contrast in textures and taste in this dish is great . I halved this recipe for the two of us when I made it the other day and I wish I hadn't, it was that good!
 About the Giveaway
  As I mentioned before, our 1st Blogiversary is approaching and the people at Early Morning Pottery have given me 2 of their wonderful ceramic Chicken Cookers, and 1 set of Game Hen Cookers to give away in celebration. The rules are simple:
 Rule 1
 On Your Blog:  Post about The Colors Of Indian Cooking and this contest on your blog
or
 On Twitter: Tweet about The Colors Of Indian Cooking. (Include @kathygori in your Tweet)
or
 On Facebook: Become a Fan of The Colors Of Indian Cooking Facebook Page here and talk about it on your Facebook status.
or
   Become a follower of The Colors Of Indian Cooking
or
  Follow @kathygori on Twitter
 Rule 2
  Leave a comment on this blog with a link to your activity.
  That's it.
 Winners will be chose at random on June 14th .
 Good luck!