I always turn to stews this time of year. Freezing temperatures require one big pot of warming nourishment. This year, though, my usual spring greens stew has taken on a new twist. I’ve based this dish on a gorgeous recipe for black-eyed beans or kunde in Swahili.
The beans are cooked in a peanut-tomato sauce often seen in African recipes. This creamy peanut sauce is used in soups or stews and can have chickpeas, beans, sweet potato and chopped dark, leafy greens. Mafe is a Senegalese version of this stew and is spicier with cayenne pepper.
Make this as spicy as you like. I love serving it with some White Mausu black bean rayu drizzled over the top. Kwanghi Chan now has his own range of ChanChan rayus ranging from black garlic to fiery mala peanut chilli, available through Sheridans Cheesemongers.
I’ve folded some kale through mine and served it with sauteed spinach. It’s so simple and real comfort food. Incredibly economical and based on store cupboard ingredients, this handy stew can be rustled up in fifteen minutes. I love it with short-grain brown rice or barley.
I often fold leftover roast chicken through it for my kids. It’s vegan as is though and perfectly balanced.
Ethiopian spice
I rely a lot on a good berbere spice mix. I find I add it to everything once it’s in my cupboard. It’s an Ethiopian blend of spices and can be assembled easily at home with the core ingredients being dried chillies, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, cloves and nigella seeds. A balance of warmth and spice.
There are plenty of recipes online or in great books such as Ethiopia by Yohanis Gebreyesus. He has countless recipes using teff, a fine grain, including delicious injera, the spongy fermented flatbread that features daily in Ethiopian cuisine. So many of the recipes are vegan and vegetarian too, a really lovely book.
The recipe for kunde that this is based on is from In Bibi’s Kitchen by Hawa Hassan. Bibi means “grandmother” in Swahili. It’s a lovely collection of recipes and stories of grandmothers from the eight African countries that touch the Indian Ocean. It includes so many recipes that I’ve wanted to make at home for so long. The ground chickpea stew, Shiro, being one of them. It’s one of my favourite dishes, thanks to Fizzy of Emye, an Ethiopian farmers’ market stall in Cork.
The stories in the book are the real treasure though – the stories behind the recipes, how they came about and who cooked them. Crossing generations, cultures and continents. All connected and brought together by sharing delicious food
Recipe: PEANUT STEW WITH GREENS
