Rajma chawal

Before you start

• soak the beans overnight
• about 90 minutes on the hob once they go on
• two tins of beans skip the soak and the hard boil both

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 110gdried kidney beans — or two drained tins, and start at the masala
• 140gbasmati rice
• 2onions
• 3tomatoes
• 1 thumbginger and garlic
• 2 tspoil
• 2 tspcumin, coriander and garam masala
• 1 tspkashmiri chilli powder
• 1 handfulcoriander

Method

8 steps

1. soak · 8 hours walk away

   Beans under plenty of cold water, overnight. They roughly double, so give them room.

2. boil · 12m

   Drained, covered with fresh water, and boiled HARD for a full ten minutes before anything else happens. Undercooked kidney beans are genuinely toxic and this rolling boil is what deals with it — a slow cooker on low never gets there, which is the one thing worth knowing about this bean.

3. simmer · 1 hour walk away

   Heat down and the lid on until a bean crushes to paste between finger and thumb with no chalk left in the middle.

4. chop · 8m

   Onions diced fine, tomatoes chopped, ginger and garlic to a paste.

5. fry · 18m

   Onion browned deep in the oil, then ginger-garlic, then the spices for a minute, then the tomatoes cooked down until the oil comes back out at the edges.

6. fold · 5m

   Beans in with a ladle of their cooking water and a handful of them crushed against the side of the pan. That is what thickens rajma — not flour and not cream.

7. boil · 12m walk away

   Rice on: rinsed, twice its volume of water, lid, lowest heat.

8. finish · 12m

   Ten more minutes together so the beans take the masala, then salt and coriander. If any of it is being kept, cool it fast and get it in the fridge inside the hour — the rice especially.