Unfathomably Quick Green Bean Curry
The 10-minute magic trick
This week we’re continuing on in our Tinned Food Month journey with a vegetarian dish that’s inspired by Everest Curry King, a restaurant in my hometown of Lewisham. It’s an easy and very quick curry made with tinned green beans and coconut milk. I adore it for its simplicity and depth of flavour and I hope you will like it too!
The sun has finally come out, just as we were all about to collectively lose our minds after 7 months of grey. Thank goodness. It means I want fast meals and more time outdoors. This week’s Green Bean Curry is my creamy, coconutty solution.
This dish is very much indebted to Everest Curry King, the restaurant to which I have the strongest emotional connection. I grew up and spent the first 18 years of my life living 600m from this Sri Lankan and South Indian restaurant, but didn’t really learn how lucky that made me until I was 21 and studying at Goldsmiths University. It was then, 10 years ago, that I first ate a briney, coconutty bean dish very similar to this one. It was part of the £4.50 (!) set lunch menu, along with 3 other curries (usually the aubergine, dal and fish but many rotations were enjoyed) on my university lunch breaks. I would then roll back into a 2pm lecture curried-up, cross-eyed and sleepy, and not much capable of taking in stories of the structure of contemporary political communications. No regrets though.
I have eaten it dozens of time since. To me, the beans in the Everest version always tasted really soft and salty, and I thought that using tinned beans would be a good way to replicate that at home. The secret to this curry’s success is King’s Curry Powder, a spicy dry roasted Sri Lankan curry powder which you can buy from lots of South Asian grocers (including the one 3 doors up from Everest), and also online from Veenas. It comes in a giant 500g tub but I want you to trust me that your life will be improved immeasurably by having this stuff in your cupboard. If you can’t get it though and you want this curry NOW, I’ve suggested a substitution curry mix below (but I confess the dinner won’t take you 10 minutes with this added step. Still quick though.)
You can buy fresh curry leaves from the same shops, and store them in the freezer for months. I use them straight from frozen.
I like to serve Green Bean Curry alongside a dal and an aubergine or lamb/fish curry and plenty of rice and roti. But I have a compulsion to cook 2 or 3 curries minimum - you do your thing. Up the tinned vegetables.
Please note: this curry serves 4 if serving with multiple dishes, but if you’re just making the one curry it will serve 2.
Tinned Green Bean Curry
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 onion, chopped
1 cinnamon stick
3-4 curry leaves
½ tsp mustard seeds (I use brown)
2 skinny green chillies, sliced (or other green chilli is fine)
3 cloves garlic, each chopped in 3 pieces
1 tin green beans
Salt to taste
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 ½ tsp King’s Curry Powder
1 cup of coconut milk (from a tin or mix 3 tsp of Maggi coconut milk powder with a cup of water)
Heat the oil and add the chopped onion, mustard seeds, cinnamon stick, curry leaves, and a pinch of salt. Fry for 4 minutes.
Add the garlic and green chillies, and cook for a minute.
Add the turmeric and curry powder. Stir and fry for about another minute, then add your drained and halved green beans and toss. Pour in your coconut milk, along with another pinch of salt to taste. Simmer for 3 minutes, until the oil separates out and the colour looks orange and appetising. Enjoy with rice and/or roti!
If you don’t have King’s Curry Powder, here’s what to do:
Mix 1 tsp red chilli powder, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, methi seeds, and black peppercorns, with ½ tsp turmeric, cinnamon, 5 curry leaves, and if you have it, some fresh/dried pandan leaf. Roast gently in a dry pan for 3 minutes until it smells great and toasty. Grind in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar until you have a powder. Enjoy! This will make enough for 4 or 5 curries (store in dry sealed jar).
See you next time when Tinned Food Month will take a turn to something sweet…