Iraq - Maraq Fasoulia

Butter beans are probably my favourite beans so I was keen to do this dish. My recipe said to use dry beans and soak them overnight. I almost forgot to soak them which is usually the case when I use dry beans. I may try this recipe again with canned beans and see if there's actually any difference!

Sadly my camera had an accident a few days ago and so I had to take pictures with my phone instead. There's less pictures than usual and they're not as good, sorry :)

Ingredients:

1 tbls oil
1 kg meat on bone
2 bay leaves
2 cups butter beans
2 onions
1 can tomatoes
3 tbls tomato paste
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 lemons (juice of)



 You might notice that I didn't use 1kg of meat in my stew, that's because we're not made of money! Seal the meat in the hot oil and add two chopped onions. Cook until the onions are sauted. Add the bay leaves and cover with water. Simmer for and hour and a half. (By the way, we've sussed simmering on this hob now, woo!)


 Add the butter beans and maybe a touch more water if needed. Simmer again for an hour. Add the remainder of the ingredients and stir well. Simmer for 20 minutes adding a bit of flour if it needs thickening. Serve with rice.


I used lamb chops as the required vague meat and it was deliciously tender and flavoursome. The beans gave a nice texture to the stew but not enough of them had survived the simmering for hours. The whole stew had nice flavour almost like a chilli or curry. It went well with rice since it needed something to soak up the liquid in it. It was easy to make because you could set it off simmering and leave it alone to cook for a while. Would cook again! :)

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