Monday, October 20, 2008

Quick and easy Indian green beans

I was just reading my friend's cooking blog (http://themistaskitchen.blogspot.com/) and she gave a very nice recipe for roasted green beans (when you make my recipe and it turns out terrible and you are left with a pound of untarnished green beans, you should look at here recipe) prepared in an Indian, or dare I say Bangladeshi way. I, of course, can not claim that these are really authentic Indian or Bangladeshi, but I'll give my best rational for why I think they are. First, I have a vague memory of one of my close elementary school friend's (he was Indian) mother preparing a meal which included a spicy green bean dish; and second, I had a roommate last year whose fiance was Bangladeshi, and many of the recipes she made included the very nice mixture of sweetness and sourness which figures into this dish.

Well enough storytelling:
A few handfuls of green beans (if you want an exact number 87 will do)
Between a cup and half a cup of slivered almonds
A cubic inch of fresh ginger
A few cloves of garlic
Curry Powder
Honey
Balsamic Vinegar
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Take you favorite cast iron pan and roast the almond slivers until they get a little toasted, but not burned. Let them cool (I usually let them cool on the pan). Then take you second favorite cast iron pan and heat a little olive oil, then add the ginger and garlic (which you should dice before hand). After cooking for a minute or so add the beans (make sure they are not really wet when you add them). While this cooks add in the curry powder to taste, plus some salt might help. Cook until done and then transfer to a glass bowl. Add in the now dried almonds (when you roast almonds they get a little soft, so letting them cool keeps them crunchy in the mix), and then give the mixture a few splashes of Balsamic plus a few squirts of honey. Mix thoroughly and taste.

I really like this dish and often when I make it I end up making a meal out of it. Yeah... I'm pretty lame, but it tastes good, so why not.

1 comment:

Kari said...

this dish looks awesome ivan, chris and i are going to try it this week!! i'm excited for your food network app, let me know if you want any help!