Tuesday 2 February 2010

Investigating new vegetables 2

I went marketing at the weekend with Mrs P and ended up in her parents home. Her mother is just a few years younger than me and remarkably looks still too young to have had Sanghamitra, never mind her younger sister. They have a compartatively larger garden for houses here, and when I said that I had a big garden at home I was promptly shown round. Their garden has great shade, very important here as the temperatures start to rise. They grow tomatoes, beans, various leaves, there's a jackfruit tree, and others I didn't recognise.

I was presented with freshly picked coriander leaves, scrumptious! and a bunch of drumstick beans. Now I'd seen these bean trees before but had no idea what they would be like to eat. Although they are called a bean they are not a true bean. Botanically they are Moringa oleifera so check out  what they look like.

I was told that the way to cook them was to first peel the skin back, chop them into lengths of about 1-2 in, fry with onions, tomatoes, cumin seeds and chili to your taste. 

It is one of the delights of living in another country that you come across strange new foods and of course you just have to try them. Well I did last night! What a disaster! perhaps I didn't follow S's instructions but I won't be buying these. Imagine stringy celery wiithout the juice, and with a bitter taste. Definitely not for me.    After they went out for the cows, it was a quick noodles with a simple tomato and onion sauce with lots of coriander leaves for dinner - much enjoyed.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Sheila really enjoying your posts. Have been refraining from putting up a stream of "that reminds me..." posts but rest assured you've been triggering a lot of reflection and reminiscence here in the forest. Visited with Katy over in Farnham last weekend - really good to see her again and her new abode. Got to go walking on the marshes and rediscover the East Coast winter wind!!
    Thinking about refrigeration and poor electricity supply - came across this sophistication of an old idea - thought it mighty be useful if you aren't already aware of it: http://www.homebrewpower.co.uk/2009/11/electricity-free-fridge-2-pot-fridge.html
    Came across this site re 'Drumstick Tree' - this page has recipes: http://www.moringaseeds.info/recipe.htm
    And HDRA our organic gardening organisation has this page: http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/pdfs/international_programme/Moringa.pdf
    All very interesting....
    Hope you recover full mobility in that arm, looking forward to reading about your work on the project.
    Ken xx

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