The “Secret” Beans (Black Eye Peas) Recipe You’ve Always Wanted

The “Secret” Beans (Black Eye Peas) Recipe You’ve Always Wanted.

I would like to think there might be a few people like me or who are like i used to be….

Until recently, i had this phobia for cooking beans because my beans never turned out right; it was either never cooked even though it seemed to have been cooking forever, always seemingly almost done but never quite getting to the done side of things – even an hour later!

Another beans problem that seemed to confront me was the salt. I put in the salt and it tastes seemingly right then once its ready and getting cold, the salt in it seems to multiply! And then it goes from just right to too salty when cool!

So i stayed away from cooking beans even though i love beans!

It turns out that once i decided to cook it and cook it until i nailed, it worked – Practice really does make perfect #truth!

I now have fun doing different variations which i will continue to share in future posts but here is the basic recipe for my beans;

I’ll go ahead and list the basic ingredients and then i’ll walk you through the process.

The "Secret" Beans (Black Eye Peas) Recipe You've Always Wanted....

Author: Ify

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Nigerian

Ingredients

• 454 grams which is about 1 pound of Beans (Black Eye Peas)
• 1 cup Palm Oil
• ¼ cups Chopped Onions
• 1-1/2 (one and a half) level teaspoon Salt
• ½ level teaspoon Dry pepper
• 3 Tablespoons Tomato Puree
• 1 level Tablespoon ground Crayfish

Instructions

1. If no one ever told you this before, i am telling you to please soak your beans before cooking. This was the step i seemed to miss that made me struggle with the “never cooked” part.
2. I always do the quick soak although you can do the overnight soak where you just leave the beans in water overnight.
3. For the quick soak, first sort (pick the beans; like we say in naija) and rinse before cooking.
4. Place the beans in a large saucepan with 6-8 cups water. Bring to a rapid boil on medium-high heat; boil 2 more minutes. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 1 hour.
5. Drain, discard the water used in soaking and then rinse the beans.
6. Add 6 cups fresh water to the beans. Cover and bring just to boiling on medium-high heat. Once it starts to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer gently with lid tilted for about 1-1/2 hours or until soft and tender, stirring occasionally. Stir very little to prevent breaking of skins. Feel free to add water a little at a time, if needed, during cook time.
7. Here is where everything happens quickly.
8. About 10 minutes to the end of the cooking time, pour the palm oil into a frying pan and place on medium heat and immediately add the chopped onions. Fry for about 10 minutes, immediately turn off heat when onions seem to have started browning (not burning), stirring from time to time.
9. Meanwhile, add the salt, pepper, tomato puree and crayfish into the cooking beans which at this time should be almost done and soft, stirring gently.
10. Once onions is fried and other ingredients have been added to the beans, immediately pour the fried onions and palm oil into the beans, stirring gently until evenly mixed in. Turn off the heat.

Notes

COOKS TIP
For the benefit of those who might just be starting out with using recipes as its not in our nature to use recipes in naija cooking but i find that it helps in ensuring that you are able to reinvent the recipe over and over again without leaving you wondering how you did it “the last time”, I have used proper measuring cups and measuring spoons so please don’t use a random cup and spoons used in eating as this would not be accurate.


You can Google to see what measuring cups and measuring spoons look like and buy yours as they come cheap. Back home in Nigeria, i had this set of plastic measuring cups and spoons which i bought from Lagos market for about 300 naira.

You must wonder why i seem to have so much onions going into the beans and the reason is, onions gives the beans the best flavor ever. Just be sure to chop finely and by the time it is fried and goes in the beans, no one will realize how much onions is in the beans, all they’ll notice is how delicious and tasty the beans is. Trust me!

I find that this whole palm oil and onions frying thing going on here makes the palm oil have a brighter color which is the reason why the beans shines. I used to add the palm oil much earlier on directly into the beans without frying and my beans never looked appealing until i used this method.

The above shows the color of the palm oil when i begun frying the onions and the below picture shows how the palm oil has brightened towards the end of the frying time. I use my smartphone for these pictures so it doesn’t do them justice but i hope it helps in guiding you.

…And food is ready….

Enjoy on its own or with your favorite side whether its plantain or Agege bread or whatever!

Would love to know how it turns out!