Meera Sodha’s vegetarian recipe for kacang pool, or Malaysian bean stew
A delicious and triumphant blend of Levantine and Malay cuisines
This is a dish with roots in ancient Egypt. There, it started life as ful medames, the famous fava bean dish lightly seasoned with cumin, garlic and lemon. Then it was, reportedly, brought to Johor in Malaysia by Arab traders. It has since been adopted and adapted with a fierce sort of love, plus more spice and a tin of baked beans. I adore it. It’s a very delicious dinner and a triumphant blend of two cuisines.
Kacang pool
Traditionally, this dish is made with minced beef, but I’ve used soya mince. I ignore the packet instructions to rehydrate it before using, though.
Prep 10 min
Cook 35 min
Serves 4
30g unsalted butter
3 tbsp rapeseed oil, plus extra for frying the eggs
2 red onions, peeled and very finely chopped
¾ tsp fine sea salt
3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1½cm x 1½cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp mild curry powder
¾ tsp ground coriander
¾ tsp ground fennel
60g dried soya mince – I like Clearspring
1 415g tin baked beans
1 400g tin borlotti beans in water, not drained
To serve
4 eggs
Buttered dinner rolls, or Greek-style flatbreads or baguette
2 green finger chillies, finely sliced
1 lime, quartered
Put the butter and oil in a wide frying pan or a medium-sized casserole pot for which you have a lid on a medium heat. When it’s hot, add three-quarters of the chopped onions and three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt, and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes, until soft, glossy and easily squashed with a wooden spoon. Add the garlic and ginger, cook for a further three or four minutes, until the garlic no longer smells raw, then add all the spices and the soya mince, stir to mix and cook for about three minutes more.
Add both tins of beans, including the borlotti bean water, then half-fill one of the empty tins with water, and add half of that to the pan (so, a quarter of a tin’s worth). Stir, pop on the lid and leave to cook for about five minutes. Mash with a potato masher to a consistency you like – I like mine quite chunky – add more water, if need be, to loosen, then pop on the lid again and cook for another five minutes. Taste, add salt, if need be, then take off the heat and leave covered.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a wide, nonstick pan and, when it’s hot, crack in as many eggs as you can fit comfortably into the pan. Fry until the whites are set and the yolks are runny. Meanwhile, warm the bread.
To serve, spoon a quarter of the bean mix into four lipped plates or wide bowls, top each serving with a fried egg, then sprinkle over a little green chilli and as much of the leftover chopped red onion as you like. Put a lime quarter on each plate, then dig in, serving the bread on the side for mopping.
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