Fenugreek Green Beans Stir Fry

Couple of weeks ago, when Srivalli announced blogging marathon # 5, I was visiting my sister-in-law in California. She has a nice cookbooks collection and once I decided to take part in the marathon, I went through her (SIL) cook book collection for some recipe ideas. Fenugreek green beans stir fry caught my eye. The picture was very tempting and I took pictures of the recipe. Yesterday, I made this stir fry and we liked it. The recipe called for blanching the green beans and then, frying the beans and fenugreek in an onion masala paste for 5 minutes. I was little skeptical of the recipe because fenugreek is sautéed for only 5 minutes and was afraid the stir fry might be a little bitter. Fenugreek, if not coked well leaves a little bitter taste. I do use lot of fenugreek in my cooking that is when I am not lazy to pluck the leaves off the stem. However, I usually add it to my tempering so that it is sautéed well and does not give a bitter taste to the food. To my surprise, it did no such thing in this stir fry, although it is add at the end and sautéed only for five minutes!

Total Time: 20 – 25 minutes
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 10 – 15 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:

• ½ lb. / 225 grams Green Beans
• ½ bunch or ¾ cup loosely packed chopped Fenugreek Leaves
• ⅓ cup chopped Coriander Leaves
• 1 small Tomato
• 1 small Onion
• 1 tsp. Cumin Powder
• 1 tsp. Coriander Powder
• 1 tsp. Chili Powder
• 1 tsp. Salt
• Turmeric
• 1 tsp. crushed Garlic
• 1 tsp. Sesame Seeds
• 1 ½ tbsps. Oil

Preparation:

• Pluck the fenugreek/methi leaves from the stem, wash and chop it. Chop the coriander and cut tomatoes to 10-12 pieces.
• In a sauce pan, take some water and boil it to steam the green beans. The recipe called for blanching the beans but I steamed them instead.
• Meantime, chop the tips off the beans and cut each string of beans into 2 pieces, which is about 3” long. I usually buy the tips trimmed beans, which saves some time. By the time I cut the beans, water came to a boil.
• Put the beans in a steamer plate and put it in the sauce pan of boiling water. Cover the sauce pan and steam it for 5 minutes or until the beans is tender. Don’t overcook it.
• While the beans are steaming, prepare the masala by grinding together onion, garlic, cumin powder, coriander powder, chili powder, salt, turmeric and sesame seeds.
• In a frying pan or a skillet, heat oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion paste and fry it for about 3-5 minutes until the paste is nice brown.
• Add the steamed beans, tomatoes, fenugreek leaves, cilantro and stir fry on medium high heat for 5-7 minutes or until the beans is sautéed.  Masala should coat the beans and the beans should be crunchy.  If you wish, you could fry it a little longer.  I liked it as it is.  If you intend to refrigerate the beans for 2-3 days, please do stir fry it a little longer.
• Serve hot with rice or as a side dish with some grilled entree.  Last night, I ate most of this stir fry as a salad, although I served myself some rice to ate it with! 🙂