Thakkali Payaru – Black-eyed Beans with Spinach and Tomato

At work a few days ago, I got into an in-depth discussion about black-eyed beans in Indian dishes. The discussion triggered last night’s dinner, but a colleague at work also presented me one morning with a photocopy of a recipe that he said was brilliant, one of his favourites.

We considered making it but didn’t have the curry leaves which are listed as an ingredient. Today though, the same colleague brought me some curry leaves that he had very kindly bought me from a supermarket near his house. So of course the next thing to do was to follow the recipe! Kerri was out this evening so I ended up making it for myself, rather selfishly.

The recipe was surprisingly quick to make once the onion, garlic and tomatoes had been chopped – just 15 minutes or so. It smelled really good while it was cooking and the tasting samples along the way were really good too. At the end yoghurt is added, which I felt diluted some of the flavours, and also made it look rather less attractive than it had previously. If I hadn’t double-checked the quantities I would have thought I had put in more yoghurt than I was meant to, but I did check and it was correct. If I make it again I’ll put in less yoghurt, or maybe just more of everything else.

I have plenty left over for lunch tomorrow though, which is good!

Ingredients
vegetable oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
10 curry leaves
100g chopped onion
2 green chillies, slit lengthways
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 ground turmeric
200g tomatoes, cut into small pieces
50g spinach, chopped
100g cooked or canned black-eyed beans
salt
300g plain yoghurt

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add the garlic, curry leaves and onion. Cook over a moderate heat for 5 minutes or until the onion is soft.

Add the green chillies, chilli powder, coriander and turmeric. Mix well, then add the tomato pieces. Give a nice stir, then add the spinach. Cook over a low heat for 5 minutes.

Now add the black eyed beans with salt to taste. Cook for a further 1 minute until everything is hot. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly add the yoghurt, stirring well. Serve warm with plain rice (as I did) or chappati.