Kenyan Maharagwe (Spiced Coconut Bean Soup)
Overview
Maharagwe is simply the Swahili word for beans, and the dish is red beans simmered with onion, tomato and spices in coconut milk. It is eaten across Kenya and is most often served with ugali, though rice and flatbreads are equally common. The coconut milk places it on the Swahili coast. Coastal Kenyan cooking uses coconut in a way inland cooking does not, and it arrived through the same Indian Ocean trade that brought cardamom, cumin, turmeric and coriander into the region's food. Those spices are all here, and the presence of mild curry powder alongside them reflects the long South Asian presence in East Africa. It reads as though it should be fiery and is not. The spice list is long and includes chilli, but the coconut milk rounds all of it off, so the finished dish is warm and aromatic rather than hot. It is also quick: with cooked or tinned beans it is on the table in under thirty minutes. The sauce should come up to just cover the beans and will thicken further as it cools, so it is worth stopping while it still looks slightly loose.
AFN Heritage Note
Maharagwe is the Swahili word for beans. The dish reflects the Indian Ocean trade that brought coconut and South Asian spices into the cooking of the Kenyan coast.
Ingredients
Dietary tags are provided by contributors as a guide, not verified by AFN, and they depend on the products you buy. If you have a serious allergy, check every ingredient yourself. Cooking, allergies and your own judgement
Directions
- 1
If using dried beans, pick them over to remove stones and broken beans. Cover with two inches of water and soak for 6 to 8 hours or longer. Drain, cover with fresh water and cook for 1 to 2 hours until tender and soft inside. Let them cool in the cooking liquid to avoid split skins, then drain.
- 2
If using tinned beans, drain and rinse them.
- 3
Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Add the diced onions and hot pepper and cook for five minutes until the onions are translucent.
- 4
Add the garlic, curry powder, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, coriander and salt, and cook for one minute more.
- 5
Add the drained beans, the tomatoes with their juices and the coconut milk.
- 6
Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and cook for about 15 minutes, until the coconut milk thickens a little and the flavours come together.
- 7
The sauce should come up to just cover the beans. If there is not enough liquid, add a little water and cook another minute or two.
- 8
Taste and adjust the salt, or add more cayenne if you want it spicier.
- 9
Serve hot with rice, ugali or flatbread.
Africook’s Notes
Personal notes from Nympha Nzeribe- Use full-fat coconut milk, not light. The fat is what carries the spices and gives the sauce its body, and light coconut milk leaves it thin and watery.
- Let dried beans cool in their cooking liquid before draining. Draining them hot splits the skins and they break up in the sauce.
- Stop while the sauce still looks slightly loose. It thickens noticeably as it cools and will otherwise be stodgy on the plate.
- Bloom the spices in the oil with the onions for a full minute before the liquid goes in. It makes a real difference to the depth.
- It looks like it should be fiery and is not: the coconut milk rounds off the chilli. Add more cayenne at the end if you want real heat.
- It keeps four days refrigerated and is better on the second day.
Reviews
2 reviews
made this last night because i was missing back home so much! hard to find decent dried beans without paying ridiculous prices at whole foods here in LA, so i used two cans of dark red kidney beans from Ralphs instead. That tip about blooming the ground cardamom with the garlic and cumin is spot on, gave the coconut milk broth such a lekker smell while simmering. served it with warm chapati after sitting at a red robot on the 405 for an hour
Herh, cardamom and turmeric in beans? At first I was wondering chale, because back home in Ghana we don't put coconut milk or hot jalapeno in our cooked red beans oo, we prefer palm oil and fried plantain! But I tried this Kenyan recipe for dinner yesterday with canned tomatoes. The soup was so creamy paa. Next time I will add a bit more cayenne because we like plenty pepper