South African Bean Curry

To use up last week’s leftover tomatoes, I tried out a new recipe: South African Bean Curry. The recipe is from an Australian Women’s Weekly magazine and it has been sitting in my ‘recipes to make’ folder for a while. I really enjoyed it - for a vegetarian recipe, it had a surprisingly bacon-y flavour.

South African Bean Curry

Serves 4*

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

½ teaspoon brown mustard seeds

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

15 fresh curry leaves

¼ teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1-2 fresh long green chillies, seeded, chopped finely

3 cloves garlic, chopped finely

1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

2 teaspoons sugar

1½ teaspoons salt

4 medium (600g) fresh tomatoes, chopped finely

1 cup (250ml) vegetable stock

400g can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup (150g) frozen broad beans, thawed and peeled

yogurt and fresh mint leaves for serving (optional)

 

1 Heat oil in a medium pan over medium-high heat; add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves, turmeric, ground coriander, cumin, green chillies, garlic and ginger. Cook, stirring, for about 1 minute, until the seeds begin to pop. Add sugar, salt, tomatoes and the stock. Bring the mixture to the boil, then simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.

2 Add kidney beans and broad beans; simmer, partially covered, for about 5 minutes or until the beans are heated through and tender. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper.

3 Serve with yogurt and mint, if desired.

* In my opinion these would be 4 fairly small servings. I nixed the yoghurt and mint and had it with rice instead.