Mish Mash, Part I

Tonight, across Africa, mashes, thick pastes and stiff porridges are being molded into right hands and swept across plates to collect vibrant vegetables, spicy meats and flavorful juices. These pale-colored conduits are the workhorses of African cuisine; daily staples that are thoroughly filling and cheap to prepare, but texturally boring, purposefully bland and thoroughly unattractive to look at. Yes, fufu, irio, sadza, ugali and pap, I am talking about you.

One compelling feature of Marcus Samuelsson’s The Soul of a New Cuisine is how he translates these African staples into side dishes that appeal to a global audience. Sadza becomes eye-catching with the addition of avocado and fresh corn, while fufu is glamorized with coconut milk and white wine. I’ll explore a couple of these transformations in the next two posts.

First up is irio, a dish prepared by the Kikuyu (also called the Gikuyu), the largest ethnic group in Kenya. Irio is traditionally made from mashed corn, beans or peas, potatoes, and greens. Samuelsson’s version adds carrots, onions, chili, and ginger; keeps the vegetables chunky instead of mushing them all together; and employs roasted garlic and sweet potato. Although I’ve written his recipe below, note that I reduced by more than a third the amount of oil and butter he suggests, used olive oil instead of peanut oil, and substituted yams for sweet potatoes. Anyway you make it, this wordly version of irio is a side dish that eats like a meal!

Chunky Mashed Vegetables
Adapted from The Soul of a New Cuisine
Serves 4 to 6

6 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch / 2½-centimeter cubes
½ cup / 125 milliliters peanut oil
1 pound / 450 grams green beans, ends trimmed and cut into quarters
8 tablespoons / 225 grams unsalted butter
1 3-inch / 7½-centimeter piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch / 1¼-centimeter dice
1 medium red onion, coarsely chopped
2 jalapeno chilies, seeds and ribs removed, finely chopped
1½ cups / 375 milliliters water
1 tablespoon / 15 milliliters Berbere or chili powder
1 tablespoon / 15 milliliters chopped chives
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters salt
2 tablespoons / 30 milliliters olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 350° F (180° C). Toss the garlic and sweet potatoes with the peanut oil in a roasting pan. Roast for 20 minutes, or until the garlic is tender. Remove and reserve the garlic. Continue roasting the sweet potatoes until tender, about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and water. Add the beans to the boiling water and blanch for 2 minutes. Drain the beans and plunge into the ice bath to stop cooking and set the color. Drain and set aside.

When the sweet potatoes are done, transfer them to a large bowl, add the roasted garlic, and mash with a fork to a chunky consistency.

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the ginger, carrots, onion, and jalapenos and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Stir in the water and bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat and simmer gently until the carrots are tender, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the Berbere and mashed sweet potatoes, and then add the blanched green beans and cook, stirring, until heated through. Stir in the chives and salt and transfer to a serving bowl. Drizzle the vegetables with the olive oil and serve.

Tags: recipe, East Africa, Kenya, irio, side dish, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Dinner, Now Now

Once upon a time, Mark and I had a friend from Tonga. One day he invited us to his church for a special celebration. He said the festivities started at 11. Mark and I took the train from Brisbane to the suburb where the Tongan church was located, arriving just before the scheduled hour. We spotted our friend sitting in the shade of a tree, eating oranges. He invited us to sit with him, and handed us each an orange. There was no other activity on the church grounds; Mark and I were slightly baffled. But, we were enjoying the shade, the oranges and the company, so we lazily let time pass.

About 45 minutes later, our friend said, “I bet you’re wondering where all the people are and when the service will start.” Why, yes, we said, that question did cross our minds. “Well,” he said, “We are on Tongan time. Which means it doesn’t matter when we start. All that matters is that the service happens.” People began trickling in a few minutes later, and after another half an hour there was a boisterous crowd. The service, indeed, did happen. (And was followed by a feast that involved five whole spit-roasted pigs, but that is another story.)

In Zimbabwe, time is not quite so loosely conceived as in Tonga. However, we are certainly not on German time, or New York time, or even Southern U.S. time. It took me a while to get the hang of what exactly time here means:

Zimbabwean English: U.S. translation

Let’s go now: Let’s go sometime in the next couple of hours.

Let’s go just now: Let’s go sometime in the next hour.

Let’s go now now: Let’s go now.

After a day of meetings that started “just now” and e-mail replies that came, belatedly, “now,” sometimes I want dinner now now. If you find yourself in a similar situation, then you can prepare Chickpeas and Swiss Chard in the Style of the Tunisian Sahel. The recipe comes straight from Paula Wolfert, the doyenne of Moroccan and Tunisian cuisine. I am reprinting it here only so I can provide the metric equivalents – I didn’t change the recipe one bit. It makes for a quick, light nutritious meal, or a vibrant side. I love the different textures, the spicy kick and the fact that you can eat this dish warm or cold. The one question your dinner-mates will ask, of course, is where, oh where is the Tunisian Sahel? “Sahel” means coast or margin in Arabic; in Tunisia, the Sahel refers to the central part of the country’s eastern shoreline.

Time to go eat – now now!

Chickpeas and Swiss Chard in the Style of the Tunisian Sahel (Morshan)
From Mediterranean Cooking
Makes 2 servings (4 as a side)

¾ pound / 340 grams Swiss chard leaves, stemmed, rinsed and torn into large pieces
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
½ teaspoon / 2.5 milliliters coarse salt
1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters ground coriander
1 small dried red chili
30 milliliters / 2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup / 80 grams minced onion
2 teaspoons / 10 milliliters tomato paste
1 cup / 165 grams cooked chickpeas, with ¾ cup / 190 milliliters cooking liquid*
1 lemon, cut in wedges (optional)

Steam, parboil or microwave the chard leaves until tender, about 5 minutes. Set leaves in colander to drain. Squeeze out excess moisture and shred coarsely.

Crush garlic in mortar with salt, coriander and chili until a thick, crumbly paste forms.

Heat olive oil in large skillet and sauté the onion until pale-golden. Add the garlic paste and tomato paste and stir into oil until sizzling. Add chard, cooked chickpeas and cooking liquid and cook, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand until ready to serve. (Contents of skillet should be very moist but not soupy. For a looser texture, stir in more chickpea cooking liquid. Serve warm, at room temperature or cold with lemon wedges.

Note: Broccoli rabe, dandelion leaves, mustard greens, kale or turnip tops may be substituted for Swiss chard. Discard any yellow or damaged leaves and cook like chard. Cooking time will vary.

*Okay, I lied, I realized as I was typing that I didn’t follow this recipe to the letter! I actually used two tins of canned chickpeas, drained, and water instead of the freshly cooked beans and their cooking water. I wanted dinner now now, remember?

Tags: recipe, Tunisia, main dish, side dish, chickpeas, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Helping Each Other: A Zimbabwean Feast

The world has many holidays to be celebrated, many guests to be welcomed, many special occasions to be recognized and many accomplishments to honor. In other words, there are many good reasons to hold a feast. Last Saturday, the women of Batsiranai held a feast to an honor an accomplishment – their own.

I have been meaning to write about this amazing group of women for a long time. The members of Batsiranai are mothers of disabled children who live in a township on the outskirts of Harare. Living in this township is hard enough – inflation constantly erodes the value of the money in your purse; electricity, water and telephone services come and go; many residents lost their homes in a government “clean-up” operation two years ago. Having a child with a disability creates additional challenges. Across Zimbabwe, it is common for husbands to leave their wives if they give birth to a child with a disability, as the woman is thought to be cursed. For the same reason, these women and their children often find it difficult to secure housing – no one wants to rent to them. And, of course, the mothers need to figure out how to get healthcare for their children in a country where the doctors are striking because of low pay and basic medicines are frequently unavailable.

Such circumstances would overwhelm the best of us. But Batsiranai means “helping each other” in Shona, and helping each other is the core of what these women do. By helping each other, the Batsiranai mothers have established a successful craft-making enterprise that enables their families to thrive. They sew, paint and embroider many different items – tote bags, purses, bookmarks, baby quilts, baby bibs, bottle-cap earrings, greeting cards and more. Attached to the women’s workshop is a day care centre where their children can rest and play while they work. A nearby hospital has an outreach team which regularly visits the center to talk to parents about how to help their children grow and develop. Batsiranai has other “helpers,” too, including volunteers who’ve made the day care center a welcoming place through colorful painting and donations of toys; volunteers who’ve connected them to retail markets outside of Zimbabwe; and all the people who buy their products.Last Saturday, Batsiranai celebrated a major accomplishment – the completion of an order for thousands of dolls. It was a huge project, and, to complete it on time, Batsiranai trained mothers of disabled children from other townships in how to make the dolls. The Batsiranai spirit is spreading. At the feast, one of the new recruits said, “Thank you for giving us the opportunity to earn money; now we come home on Fridays with pay and our husbands have already done the ironing.”

And what was the menu for this feast? Beef, beef and more beef, plus sadza, cole slaw and a tomato and onion relish. And, just as important as the food, the feast was preceded by hours and hours and hours of singing and dancing.

You might not be able to make it to Batsiranai’s next feast, but you can certainly honor these women’s accomplishments by buying their fair trade-certified products. Their products are of very high quality, and make excellent gifts! Simply visit www.batsiranai.co.zw.

(Full disclosure: my husband has volunteered with this group for almost two years!)

Tags: Zimbabwe, fair trade, crafts, Batsiranai, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

A Sprinkle a Day

When my brother and I were growing up, the treatment of choice for asthma was a medicine called Theo-Dur. To tempt little asthmatics like us, Theo-Dur was packaged in sprinkle form. I can certainly understand the marketing ploy – why not subvert children’s inherent aversion to medicine and take advantage of their pure, innocent, instinctive love of sprinkles on ice cream? And, the doctor assured us, you could also sprinkle them on applesauce! And pudding! They will make every food more fun!

Well, they didn’t. My brother and I hated Theo-Dur sprinkles.

Theo-Dur sprinkles may have been the first thing in my life that I reluctantly consumed because it was good for me, but it certainly wasn’t the last. I try not to remember, for example, those tasteless celery-sticks I ate in high school because they were rumored to have “negative” calories. My present-day equivalent of Theo-Dur sprinkles is moringa. Moringa oleifera is a tree that grows in tropical and sub-tropical areas, and its leaves, fresh or dried, have many amazing properties. Three times the potassium of bananas! Four times the vitamin A of carrots! Four times the calcium in milk! It is for good reason that the tree is promoted here in Zimbabwe by organizations concerned about people’s nutrition, particularly the nutrition of people living with HIV and AIDS. Leaf powder can be added to any food! It adds flavor and nutrition! Sadly, however, one of moringa’s amazing properties is not tastiness.

Undeterred, my husband has been dusting dried moringa leaves onto his yogurt and muesli breakfast, and even his oats and brown sugar breakfast, for quite a while now. I tried it once, insisted it made my breakfast taste like grass, and thereafter turned up my nose at the stuff. Grassy might be a favorable description when discussing a chardonnay, but not my morning muesli.

I recently discovered that I’m a bit anemic, though, and now instead of just giving me a “but it’s SO good for you” look of guilt every morning as I snub the moringa, Mark has become quite pushy. You see, one of moringa’s amazing qualities is that it is a good sourse of iron. Sigh. Rather than face grassy muesli every morning, however, I decided needed to find a better conduit for the healthy green stuff. Today, I had a breakthrough.

Zimbabwe’s electricity situation is bad and getting worse, and this afternoon we only had power in half of our house (strange, but true). This meant I had a functioning oven, but a non-functional stovetop. I never realized how many baked meals actually require a little sauté action beforehand. It is really quite a few. I finally settled on preparing a tapas-like lunch of brushcetta, feta-stuffed peppadews, roasted broccoli (tossed with dried red chili, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper) and roasted green beans (tossed with salt). In an effort to add a little more zip to the roasted veggies, I prepared a yogurt-based dressing, and, in a burst of inspiration, added a healthy dose of the dreaded moringa. Its grass flavor blended right in, and the dried leaves accentuated the dressing's mellow green hue. I’ll add a sprinkle any time.

African Green Goddess Dressing

Plain Greek yogurt
Avocado
Parsley, chopped
Scallion, sliced
Dried moringa leaves (optional)
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

The amounts here are quite flexible – do what tastes good to you! Blend everything together using an immersion blender or food processor. Serve as a dressing or dip for roasted vegetables.

Tags: recipe, dressing, dip, moringa, vegetables, Zimbabwe, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

I’m Back, with Bread

I have been living outside of the US for more than four years now; during this time, I have visited home on four occasions. Like other gradual transformations (wrinkles on the forehead, extra pounds around the hips), perhaps changes in one’s country are best noticed after prolonged absences. Maybe if I had lived in the U.S. last year, for example, I would have barely noticed the creep, creep, creep with which flavored water asserted itself on the shelves of my grocery store and the menus of my favorite sandwich shops. Perhaps I would have quietly absorbed the fact that water could somehow become healthier than itself through infusions of pomegranate and injections of vitamins.

Instead, I stepped off the plane excited to simply drink water straight from the tap without the tedium of boiling and filtering. Which meant I was dumbstruck by the innocently-posed question: “So, what flavor water would you like?” Um, the watery water flavor?

My first visit home three years ago was marked by a similarly perplexing experience.

I joined the lunchtime line at Bruegger's, very excited about eating my first bagel in more than a year. (However inauthentic you may think Bruegger's bagels are, they are the epitome of bagel-dom after viewing what passes for a bagel in Australia.) There I was, grappling with the deep “Everything? Or whole grain?” question, when I overheard a snippet of conservation. The store manager was commenting to his assistant, “I get asked to make those all the time now.” I followed his gaze until I spotted a bagel, plain, being totally eviscerated. As I stared, the assistant used his plastic-gloved finger to tear the entire inside bread from the bagel crust. He proceeded to layer sandwich fillings onto a bread-less bagel half.

What? A bread-less bagel? What is going on?

And then it hit me, the phenomenon I had missed while I was away: Atkins.

So, today, in honor of “catch-me-dumbstruck” food moments past, present and future, I offer you an extremely bready, completely anti-Atkins, Moroccan bread. Which I recommend you serve with tap water.

Moroccan Flatbread with Yeast (Batbout M’Khamer)
Slightly adapted From World Vegetarian
Makes 5

1 teaspoon / 5 milliliters active dry yeast
½ teaspoon / 2.5 milliliters sugar
1¾ cups / 210 grams unbleached, all-purpose white flour
1½ cups / 300 grams fine semolina flour
1½ teaspoons / 7.5 milliliters salt
Olive oil

Combine the yeast, sugar and 2 tablespoons of warm water in a small bowl. Stir to dissolve completely. Set aside for 5 minutes, or until the yeast begins to bubble.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mound the white flour and the semolina flour into the shape of a small hill. Hollow a crater on the hilltop and put the salt and the yeast mixture into it. Now slowly pour warm water into the crater. You will need about 1 cup of warm water, or slightly more. As you add the water, slowly gather the flour together into a ball. Keep adding the water a little at a time while gathering the dough, until the dough begins to form a soft, smooth ball. Once you can form a ball, begin to knead. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, or until it is smooth and elastic. Form a ball.

Lightly grease a large, flat platter with the olive oil and set it aside. Coat your hands slightly with the oil. Break the dough into 5 equal, smooth balls. Place the balls on the oiled plate a good distance from one another. Cover with a clean dishcloth and set in a warm place for 5 to 10 minutes.

Lightly grease your countertop. Take one ball and, with the flat part of your fingers, flatten it out until it is 1/4-inch / 6-millimeters thick and 6 inches / 15.5 centimeters in diameter. (Note: Mine ended up slightly larger at this thickness.) Follow the same procedure with all of the balls. Cover the flatbreads with a clean dishcloth and set them aside for 1 hour.

Set a large, cast-iron frying pan over medium heat and let it get very hot. Pick up one flatbread and lay it in the center of the frying pan. Cook for 1 minute. Turn the bread over and cook for another minute. Now turn the bread over four more times, cooking each side for just 30 seconds. The bread should have some toasty brown spots on each side. Then stand the bread in the pan as if it were a wheel, and, using an oven mitt, hold one side of the bread with your thumb, and the other side with your middle finger. Slowly rotate the bread, just like a wheel, and lightly cook the edges for 1 minute. Place the flatbread on a dishcloth, and wrap it up. Make all the breads this way, stacking them on top of each other, and covering them each time. The bread will stay warm for about 30 minutes.

This recipe comes from Madhur Jaffrey, and she describes the bread as pita-like. Indeed, Mark and I tore them into two skinny flat pieces and used them to scoop up curry. You could also make a pocket and stuff it with your favorite sandwich filling. If you have leftovers, store them in tinfoil and simply pop them in the toaster oven the next day.

Tags: recipe, bread, Morocco, North Africa, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

After a Pause, A Pudding

Greetings from cold, rainy Boston, Massachusetts. Yep, that’s right, I am away from Zimbabwe for the moment and am visiting family and friends in the U.S. I thought I would have lots of free time during my trip, free time during which I would cook many delectable African dishes that would win the admiration of many wary-eyed family members, and that I would transform into many wonderful blog posts. The reality: few items have been cooked and, until now, no posts have been written. Instead, I have been wooed by shopping malls and feted by friends, spent hours of drop-jaw gawking at the amazing offerings of Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Wilson Farms, and been re-introduced to the joys of surfing with a fast (as opposed to a 32kbs) internet connection. Ah, the many wonders of the (over)developed world.

I have squeezed in a bit of cooking – not the elaborate feasts I had a mind, but a few dishes here and there, including these beans, this stew and beetroot pesto pasta. The biggest admirer of every dish has been my 16-month old nephew, who, I’ve learned, will eat and drink absolutely anything. I have seen him gobble up pickles and clams, bite into a fresh lemon, and take a sip of black coffee – and go back each time for another gobble, bite and sip. He may not be discerning, but he is certainly the most adventurous little eater I have ever seen. (Here seen eating the aforementioned pasta).

Thus, it was not surprising that Little Matthew used two hands as he devoured the apricot pudding I made using a recipe from Colette Rossant’s Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes. This dish had other family fans, too, including my mom, who was seen eating a bowl for breakfast and claimed the pudding’s intense apricot flavor become better every day. This dish is a great springtime dessert because of its sunny yellow color – I wish I had made it for Easter, in fact. The most fun part of this recipe is seeing how the dried apricots, after being soaked overnight, actually plump up until they are almost the size of fresh apricots. I was amazed!

Without further ado, here is apricot pudding, a recipe I hope will tide you over until I return to Zimbabwe in mid-May…or until I somehow sneak away from the many distractions vying for my attention to cook and write another post!

Apricot Pudding
Slightly adapted from Apricots on the Nile
Serves 6 or more

450 grams / 2 cups dried apricots
6 large eggs
90 milliliters / ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
30 milliliters / 2 tablespoons rum
150 grams / ¾ cup sugar

Place the pound dried apricots in a bowl, cover them with warm water, and soak overnight. Drain.

Pre-heat the oven to 180° C / 350° F. Place the apricots, eggs, heavy cream, rum and sugar in a food processor. Process until the apricots are puréed. Butter a 1½ liter / 1½ -quart mold, and pour the apricot purée into the mold. Place the mold in a larger pan filled with hot water. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the point of a knife inserted in the middle of the pudding comes out clean. Cool.

I’m sure this is pudding heresy, but I didn’t unmold the pudding after it cooled; instead, I served scoops straight from the mold. Unmold if you wish! Rossant suggests garnishing with mint leaves.

Tags: dessert, apricot, pudding, recipe, Egypt, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa

Home-Baked Beans

About seven years ago, I worked at a global education museum, where I helped develop exhibits that introduced U.S. schoolchildren to the world outside their country’s borders. One of the exhibits encouraged kids to think about how people around the world are connected by international trade. In an effort to make these connections, sometimes I’d talk with groups of children about where their favorite foods came from. Here is the start of a typical discussion:

Me: Today, let’s talk about some of your very favorite foods and think about where they come from. Who wants to tell us their favorite food? Let’s hear from you [pointing to the 8-year-old in the blue sweatshirt jumping up and down with his hand raised].

Boy: Hot dogs!

Me [thinking, oh dear, I really don’t want to get in a discussion about where hot dogs come from]: Great, that’s a great favorite food. Let’s hear from someone else, too. How about you [pointing to the girl in the purple shirt]?

Girl: Macaroni and cheese!

Me: What kind of macaroni and cheese, the kind you make at home, or the kind you buy in a box?

Girl [screwing up her face as if confused]: Well, we make it at home but it comes from a box!

Me: Oh, right, of course. Now, where does that macaroni and cheese come from?

All the kids in unison: THE SUPERMARKET!

Me: But, how did the box get to the supermarket?

Children [blank stares, silence].

Me: And how did the noodles and cheese get into the box?

Children [blank stares, silence].

Me: And where did the noodles and cheese come from?

Children [blank stares, silence].

Me: Do you think that boxes of macaroni and cheese grow on supermarket shelves?

Children [laughter, followed by blank stares].

Me: Okay, let’s try to work backwards and figure out how this box got to your supermarket….

This story brings me, somehow, to baked beans. Because, not too long ago, if you had asked me how a can of baked beans got to my house, I would probably stutter and stumble and say something like: well, obviously, the beans need to be baked, probably in big batches in a very big oven. Hmm, I’m not sure what type of beans they are, though – maybe a special baking bean? And then there is the sweet and salty sauce that goes on them, or maybe that is what they are baked in – I’m not sure. And then the whole mixture gets poured into a can and goes by truck to the supermarket where I buy it!

Being from Boston, the home of Boston baked beans, I feel I should definitely know more about baked beans and where they come from. Lucky for me, food writers and bloggers have been quite interested in baked beans lately.

While seeking out an African version of baked beans, I found Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe for Baked Beans with Nigerian Seasonings. These beans are warmth itself, satisfying and hearty with a hint of spice. They work well as a light dinner or side dish – just remember that the recipe takes two hours to bake, so its not something you want to start preparing at 7:30 on a weeknight! If you have leftovers, try a breakfast of whole-wheat toast topped with the beans.

The main seasoning in these beans is curry powder, which I more closely associate with the East African coastal cooking of Kenya and Tanzania and the Cape Malay cuisine of South Africa rather than with Nigerian cooking. But Jaffrey is one of my favorite chefs, so who I am to question her? After all, the recipe does ask for a hefty amount of black pepper – a very Nigerian touch. The other interesting ingredient in these baked beans is peanut butter, an item used in many dishes in sub-Saharan Africa (including this stew and this snack). In fact, to my mind, these beans are better named “Africa-inspired baked beans.”

I’ve prepared Jaffrey’s baked beans several times now, and I like to make them even more Africa-inspired (and a bit more colorful) by adding a locally-grown green leafy vegetable (such as rape, covo or pumpkin leaves). I’ve added greens both before and after the baking stage. I think “after” works better, although this is not how I did things on the day my husband took the photo above. The recipe works best with delicate cannellini beans, but any small-to-medium white bean will do. When I can’t find white beans at the store, I use local sugar beans instead. Finally, note that you can modify the proportion of hot versus mild curry powder depending on your heat preferences. Enjoy!

Baked Beans with Nigerian Seasonings
Slightly adapted from World Vegetarian
Serves 4-6

180 grams / 1 cup dried cannellini beans
62 milliliters / ¼ cup peanut or canola oil
1 medium onion, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
5 milliliters / 1 teaspoon hot curry powder
10 milliliters / 2 teaspoons mild curry powder
2 large tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped
22.5 milliliters / 1½ tablespoons smooth peanut butter
6.2 milliliters / 1¼ teaspoons salt
Very generous grind of black pepper
45 grams / 1½ cups of your favorite green leafy vegetable, finely chopped

Soak the beans overnight in plenty of water. Drain.

Put the beans in a pot with 875 milliliters / 3½ cups of water and bring to a boil, skimming off the foam that rises to the top. Cover partially, turn the heat down to medium-low, and simmer gently for 40-60 minutes until the beans are just tender.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large fry pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for 1-2 minutes until the onion has just wilted, stirring almost constantly to ensure it doesn’t burn. Add the garlic, stir, and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the curry powders and stir, then add the tomatoes and stir again. Cook for 7-10 minutes, until the tomatoes have softened. Transfer this mixture into a medium casserole dish.

Pre-heat the oven to 162°C / 325°F while you wait for the beans to finish cooking.

Spoon the peanut butter into a small bowl. When the beans are ready, remove 6 tablespoons of the cooking water from the pot and slowly add it to the peanut butter, stirring as you go. Pour the beans and their remaining liquid into the casserole dish. Stir in the peanut butter mixture, salt and pepper.

Bake, uncovered, for two hours until much of the liquid has evaporated and the beans are very tender. Add the greens just after you remove the dish from the oven, and stir them around until they wilt. Serve hot.

Tags: recipe, beans, baked beans, Nigeria, West Africa, peanut butter, main dish, side dish, Field to Feast, food blog, Africa