Name: Gawar Phali Ki Sabzi
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 250 g Cluster Beans, gawar phali, strung and broken into pieces; 5 clove Garlic, crushed entirely in a mortar pestle; 1 Green Chili Pepper, crushed with the garlic; ½ tsp Mustard Seeds; ½ tsp Cumin Seeds; ¼ tsp Asafoetida, helps digest the beans; ¼ tsp Ground Turmeric; ½ tsp Red Chilli Powder; 1 tsp Ground Coriander; 2 tbsp Peanuts, roasted and coarsely crushed; 1½ tbsp Cooking Oil; ¾ tsp Salt, to taste

45 mintotal

30 min hands-on15 min hands-off

Prep 15 min · Cook 15 min

Serves: 2
Difficulty: Easy
Spice: Mild

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Method

Heat the cooking oil in a pan or kadhai positioned over medium heat. Introduce the mustard seeds and the cumin seeds, letting the hot fat blister and splutter them.
Add the hing (asafoetida), then straight away the garlic and green chilli paste crushed in a mortar. Sauté it for 30 seconds until the raw bite of the garlic has gone.
30 sec
Toss the hand-broken cluster beans (gawar) and the turmeric powder into the blistering pan. Mix thoroughly, ensuring every fragment of the beans is heavily lacquered with the potent garlic oil.
Maintain medium heat and pan-roast the beans actively for 3-4 minutes to sear their exterior.
3–4 min
Season the pan with the coriander powder, the red chilli powder, and salt. Distribute the dry spices completely.
Pour in a small splash of water to generate a steaming environment. Clamp a tight lid over the pan and drop the heat to low. Allow the beans to steam-cook in this enclosed vapor for 10-12 minutes until they turn fully tender but resist collapsing into a mush.
10–12 min
Take off the lid. If any liquid has pooled at the bottom of the pan, turn the heat up and stir until the pan is completely dry.
Scatter the coarsely crushed roasted groundnut powder over the vegetables. Toss the sabzi constantly for a final minute, until the nut powder soaks up the oil on the surface and leaves the beans in a dry, crusty coating.
Serve smoking hot.

How to tell it's done

A dry, savoury sabzi. The beans should be tender with slightly wrinkled skins, thickly coated in a coarse, sharp, garlicky peanut powder.

Getting it right

Tip

Cluster beans have a natural, earthy bitterness. Pull off the fibrous strings along the sides by hand, or they end up stringy and hard to chew. A generous amount of crushed garlic balances the bitterness well.

What to serve it with

A profoundly rustic, unpretentious home-style staple. Demands to be eaten cleanly alongside hearty Jowar Bhakri or piping hot, plain Chapatis.

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