Malagasy Recipes

Tsaramaso Malagasy (White Bean and Tomato Stew)

Dried white beans cooked until tender, then finished with red onion and sliced tomatoes into a thick, soupy stew. It is Malagasy, and it is served everywhere on the island. It is laoka, which is the useful word here. In Malagasy eating, rice is the meal and laoka is whatever accompanies it, the thing that goes on top of, or beside, a large plate of rice. Tsaramaso is one of the most popular laoka in the country, and it is eaten as a matter of course rather than as an occasion dish. It is very often not vegetarian. Zebu meat, the humped cattle that are central to Malagasy life, makes it hen'omby sy tsaramaso, and pork makes it tsaramaso sy henakisoa. The shank is the cut the source recommends. This version is the plain one, which is also widely eaten. The technique in the recipe is worth noting: the beans are cooked separately in water, seasoned only at the end, and a cup of their cooking liquid is kept back. That liquid is what the finished stew is loosened with, and it carries starch and flavour that plain water would not. The source compares it to cassoulet, which is a reasonable shorthand, beans and meat cooked long and slow, though the seasoning is entirely different.

2 hr 15 minEasyMadagascar

Recipe by Blessing · Africook