The easiest vegetarian dish of the week is this pot of lima beans braised in coconut milk. The beans are starchy, the coconut sauce lightly rich, and hot rice is all it needs. The hard part is cooking dried beans evenly soft with no chalky centers.
The beans soak for 8 hours, cook for about 40 minutes and are then mashed, so the sauce clings quickly. The shiitake soaking water is kept as stock, sweet on its own with nothing added.
This batch weighs about 333g, at roughly 215 calories per 100g.
Method
Soak the dried lima beans for 8 hours, cook them through in a regular pot for about 40 minutes, then mash them so they take on seasoning easily.
Soak 8g dried shiitake mushrooms in 120ml water and keep the soaking water.
Finely slice 1 shallot.
Heat oil in a pan and fry the shallot until fragrant.
Add the mushrooms and stir fry for about 30 seconds.
Season with 2 teaspoons salt, 1/3 tablespoon kOBE Monk Fruit Blend and 2 tablespoons soy sauce.
Add the cooked lima beans and stir fry for another 30 seconds.
Pour 120ml mushroom soaking water and 120ml coconut milk into the pan.
Braise for about 10 minutes until the sauce clings to the beans, then turn off the heat.
Tips
Keeping the mushroom soaking water gives a natural sweetness in place of stock.
Mashing the beans after cooking helps the coconut sauce cling and soak in faster.
A full 8 hour soak means the beans cook soft quickly with no chalky centers.
Ten minutes over low heat is enough, and once the sauce clings to the beans the heat goes off.
Coconut milk goes in last and only ever simmers, since a rolling boil splits the fat into a film on top.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.