l'esprit de l'escalier

Tonight I made Rajma, a Punjabi dish based on Kidney Beans.

It was an extremely good dish that we ended up making several nights in a row.  It is essentially beans and rice, Indian/Pakistani style.  If you are a fan of both kidney beans and Indian food, do yourself a favor and make this dish.

To make this I essentially blended the following:

• A couple medium sized onions
• A couple medium/small sized tomatoes
• About an inch of raw ginger
• A couple cloves of garlic

I blended this into a fine FINE paste and then fried it up in a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil.

After letting this saute up for about 5-7 minutes I threw in:

• A couple teaspoons of Garam Masala (courtesy of Andreas Khan)
• A bit of Tumeric
• 1 roughly chopped medium sized tomato
• About 5 inches of red chili pepper (I later added a bit of chili powder to increase the spiciness)
• A teaspoon or so of fresh Cilantro

After letting that cook up a bit (5 minutes or so) and salting to taste I threw in a couple cans of rinsed kidney beans.  After stirring it up I had something that looked like this:

Rajma Simmering

After letting it simmer for about 20-25 minutes (while waiting for the rice to cook up) I squeezed half a lime in, stirred it up and let it sit for another minute or two and then dished it up into two bowls (with leftovers for lunch).

I garnished the bowls with cilantro and lime:

Finished Product

Absolutely wonderful dish, extremely easy to make, full of flavor and with the lime and cilantro very fresh tasting, I only wished I would have photographed the whole process.