Mung Beans

I have to give a shout out to the other Emily in the class that suggested I check out Asiana Market across the street from Sift Cupcakery in Cotati. Thank you! :) 

Asiana market is very small but they sure can pack a lot of items into that little store. Among the items were...I don’t know. They all had Asian lettering on the packaging making it difficult to tell what everything was. I did, however, recognize those Pocky chocolate dipped things, I love those. Anyway, I ended up picking up a bag of mung beans for this week’s meal. 

I immediately associated mung beans with Creed from The Office and could not pass up buying them. And for only $1.69 a bag, they were a bargain! 

I looked up recipes using mung beans while in the store (thank you, smartphone) and decided on Mung Bean Stew. Just the sound of that makes your mouth water, doesn’t it? I stopped by the grocery store on the way home picking up carrots, sweet potatoes, celery, an onion, vegetable stock and spices.

The first step is to boil the beans for about 20 minutes, but I would recommend boiling them for 30 minutes because mine were not completely soft after just 20 minutes. After draining and rinsing the beans with cold water, I moved on to boiling the potatoes. I used sweet potatoes because if there is a sweet version of anything, I prefer it. Those take about 10 minutes. After setting those aside with the beans, I started the rest of the vegetables.

I combined celery, carrots, onion and garlic in a pan with heated oil. I left out the mushrooms because I am not a fan. Those became tender after about 10 minutes and I added the vegetable stock and spices. In addition to the salt and pepper the recipe called for, I added cayenne pepper, cumin, rosemary and a bay leaf. I can guarantee you the stew would not have tasted as good without these spices. I am a big believer in spices, I do not think they can really hurt a meal unless you add too much of one spice. But I urge you to use and experiment with different spices.

After cooking the vegetables with the vegetable stock for a few minutes, I combined it with the potatoes and mung beans in a casserole dish. Cover with a lid if you have one, if not, like myself, simply cover with foil. Place the dish in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. I do not see the point in putting the stew in the oven, it did not cook anything more then it already was. In any case, it came out very delicious. The sweet potato added some sweetness to the meal and the beans did not have a very distinct taste to me but did not taste bad. I saw them as just a substitution for peas. My roommates were not as fond of the meal as I was.

Angie: "Oh...this is not what I was expecting."

Maygor: “No.” (Makes disgusted face)

About 10 minutes later...

Maygor: “What do you want me to do with this? Do you want it?”

No I do not want your picked over stew Maygor. 

Although Maygor did not eat much of it, Angie finished the majority of it and Nicole got out of tasting this week. Luckily, I had lunch and dinner for the next few days. 

With this recipe I would like to make more of a gravy then just a thin stock and possibly try it as a pot pie filling. If there is anything you should know about me, it is my love of chicken pot pies. Maybe I will start a chicken pot pie blog. But overall, I really enjoyed the stew and the mung beans. I think the beans would be good as just a side dish, too.

-Em