How To Cook Bean Stew – Simple Bean Stew Recipe With Veggies
If a Kenyan is not making rice for dinner, they are making chapati, ugali, or githeri. These are the typical Kenyan dishes, and you’ll see where beans come in. Rice and bean stew are a match made in heaven. The same goes for chapati and bean stew.
Well, the case is different for ugali. You’ll best enjoy it with green veggies and meat. But some cultures go as far as finding ways to make tasty bean puree that serves as an okay accompaniment. And githeri is just a local name for a mixture of maize and beans.
As you can see, eating beans is not only a Kenyan tradition but also something that people enjoy doing. We cook all kinds of beans. For this reason, we’ve found many ways to enrich their original flavor or even drift away from it.
I find great satisfaction in trying to make different kinds of bean recipes. With some inspirations from within my culture and others elsewhere.
For this recipe, my inspiration was a chickpea recipe I watched on Facebook. It gave me a basic idea that I did more than just tweaking and got my yummy beans stew recipe that I’m confident you will enjoy.
What’s Different about this Bean Stew?
Typical Kenyan bean stews are savory and spicy. They are richly seasoned with curry powder, masala powder, and coconut milk. This recipe produces a sweet taste. Not the kind of sweetness you get from sugar or honey. This is the delicate flavor that comes from combining carrots with celery.
Celery has a bold taste that combines with the taste of carrots to create a kind of sweetness that you cannot get with any other vegetable combination. To enhance the sweetness, I recommend using white onions for this recipe. There are other ingredients for this recipe, but these play a primary role in defining the overall flavor.
Simple Red Bean Stew Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Cooking pan
- 1 Cooking stick
- 1 cooking pan lid
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp cooking oil (olive or sunflower oil)
- 1 medium-sized yellow onion (use red as substitute)
- 4 minced garlic cloves
- 1½ tbsp tomato paste
- 1 green chili
- 1 cup thinly sliced celery
- 1 cup cubed carrot pieces
- 4 cups kidney beans
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 cups water or broth
Instructions
- Transfer oil and onions into a cooking pan. Let the onions cook on medium heat until they become translucent.
- Add minced garlic and stir continuously until they cook properly. Ensure that garlic and onions do not burn.
- Add tomato paste and continue stirring for about 3 minutes to allow even cooking. Stirring also prevents the paste from sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning.
- Add 1 green chili or enough to taste then stir for 30 seconds.
- Add a cup of celery, stir, and cook for one minute.
- Add a cup of carrots, stir to combine everything, and cook for another two minutes.
- Add a teaspoon of salt and stir.
- Add four cups of beans, stir and let cook for 2 to 3minutes.
- Add four cups water or broth, cover, and let simmer for 7 minutes.
- Adjust salt and pepper if needed.
- Remove from heat and serve with rice, chapati, or any otheraccompaniment of your choice.