White bean curry is what happens when lima beans sitting around the pantry are found and put to good use during lockdown times. Well, we often buy ingredients with the hope of making something exotic, especially those we have never tried before. These white beans were bought during our grocery haul a few months ago and then forgotten. Now that the lockdown is on and movement is restricted we started pulling out everything from our pantry to take stock of what we could finish up first and what had a longer shelf life and a bag of white beans is what we found. Since the man had bought it I asked him to make something out of it. A few basic ingredients were tossed along with the beans that were soaked overnight, into the pressure cooker and voila! a beautiful curry happened just like that! We enjoyed it so much with some chapathis. Simple, delicious and nutritious!
Here’s a picture of how the beans looked before they were cooked. It took me a while to figure out the actual name as the label on the pack just said ‘white beans’. These are also called as butter beans. However, you can make this recipe with any white beans or even kidney beans (rajma). Mangaloreans who love tingalavre (which I believe is Navy/Harikot beans) can try this recipe with the same.
We are huge fans of legumes of all kinds so we cook at least one type every week and I am glad that we discovered this new (to us) kind of beans. We loved their smooth & buttery texture and I am definitely going to try different versions of them soon.
Folks, I am sure that almost everyone who is reading this, no matter where you live, is experiencing the lockdown or at least some form of restricted movement. I hope you are safe indoors and that you are managing things better with each passing day. Take care and stay safe!
Love beans? Have you tried these simple recipes?
Gule Sukhe (Black Eyed Beans Sukka)
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White Bean Curry
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried white beans
- 1 medium sized onion finely sliced
- 2-3 fat cloves of garlic sliced horizontally
- 1 inch ginger chopped
- 1 medium tomato roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon red chilli powder adjust to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1/2 teaspoon chaat masala powder
- oil for frying
- Chopped coriander to garnish
Instructions
- Wash and soak the white beans in plenty of water for at least 6-8 hours, overnight is best. Then discard the water and rinse once. Keep aside.
- Heat oil in a pressure cooker and fry the onion till golden brown. Then add the sliced garlic and fry for a few seconds before adding the chopped ginger. Let it sizzle before adding the chopped tomato. Fry everything till the tomato turns mushy. Sprinkle some salt to speed up this process
- Reduce the heat and add the chilli powder, turmeric powder & the chaat masala and fry everything well. Add the rinsed white beans and enough water to cover them. Add salt to tase
- Pressure cook for about 7-8 whistles or till tender but not too mushy. Turn off the heat and let the pressure cooker cool down to room temperature.
- Open the pressure cooker and stir once. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve piping hot with chapathis or rice
Disclaimer
The nutritional values are only indicative.
Shireen: How would I proceed with the recipe if I were to use canned white beans? Just that I have a few cans lying around!
Hi Dido,
You can follow the recipe till the point where you add the soaked and drained beans. Ensure that your tomato base is well cooked and then you can add the drained cans of beans. Reserve the liquid from the cans and add it only if necessary.
Turned out perfect! I used white kidney beans, but followed the rest of the recipe to the T. Not too spicy. I didn’t cook a lot since we like a bit crunchy. My kiddo ate all the beans before touching his rice
Thank you so much for your great feedback Aswhini! Happy to hear that your son enjoyed it so much! That is the best feedback!
Amazing and simple recipe. We tried it and it was lovely! Thank you
Thank you so much for the great feedback! Happy to know that you liked it so much!
Very good.
Thank you so much!