Its amazing how life changes you. Growing up , beans was one of my most hated meals. I hated eating many things as a child anyways, my mum still can’t believe how I’ve turned around and become a foodie, I hated beans. Then life happened and I found myself married to a beans lover, and I had to cook and of course eat it more often than I could have ever imagined.

Beans porridge is one of the most popular plant protein dishes in Nigeria. In the University the boys hostel was known as the hub of beans porridge. The boys didn’t seem to know how to cook anything else other than beans. Beans porridge can very easily be a one pot meal and it was easy for them to pair it with bread or garri and have a fully stomach for the whole day

Easy as it is to cook beans, it is quite easy to go wrong with it too. The best type of beans to cook beans pottage with is Ewa Oloyin (Oloyin Beans / Honey Beans) . Honey beans is naturally sweet hence it the name. However even in the absence of honey beans, a few tips can help you make a tasty meal of beans pottage.

Recipe

Serves 6

Ingredients

*all measurements are made with standard measures.

• 3 1/2 cups Beans

• 2 Medium sized onions
• 1/2 or 3/4 cup of jalepeno blended pepper OR you can use 1 or 2 tablespoon (s) of Cayenne pepper

• 1/2 cup Palm oil
• 4 tbsp ground crayfish

• *1 Bonga Fish (optional ) you can use it shredded or blended to a powder.

• 2 Cubes bouillon cubes
• Salt to taste.

Procedure

– Pick beans for dirt, rinse beans throughly.

* It is said that the amount of pesticides applied to beans for storage is really high, in fact some western countries recently placed a ban on importation of beans from Nigeria due to the high presence of pesticides. This has also been linked to the cause of heartburn and flatulence after consuming beans. Beyond washing beans throughly, you can slightly parboil the beans and discard the water, or soak the beans in boiling hot water for at least five minutes, discard the water, rinse and proceed to cook.

– In a clean pot or pressure pot, cook the beans with water and one chopped onion.

*I strongly recommend that every one owns a pressure pot even if it is just for cooking beans. With a pressure pot, the beans is tender in about 15 minutes. If you are using a regular pot, you have to cook for between 30 – 45 minutes to get the beans to be tender enough

– When the beans is tender, add, palm oil, crayfish, blended or Cayenne pepper, salt, * bonga fish bouillon cubes (I use knorr more recently Adobo Seasoning )

– Cook all together for about 20 minutes or until all the elements are well incorporated in the beans and the beans pottage has thickened. Turn off the heat and serve

– Enjoy with dodo (fried plantain ) Garri (roasted cassava granules ) , yam, rice, bread or just by itself .

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