African Lobia Beans For Georgian Dishes

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

If you've been to a decent restaurant with Georgian cuisine, you should know what lobio is - a bean dish with a spicy aromatic dressing. Every self-respecting Caucasian housewife knows that for a real lobio it is best to buy a real lobia.

Walk along a bean row, for example, in Sukhumi. What beans are not there! Please note that, unlike us Europeans, different varieties of beans are not mixed here, because different varieties of beans behave differently during cooking. So there are multicolored slides in the sun: small white, large white, black, red, spotted and bright (the most expensive). There are also Turkish beans and large flat ones with spots. And here is what interests us - real lobia.

Gardener's Handbook

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

This is one of the most ancient food plants. After all, all beans and Turkish beans are alien plants. Europeans only got to know them after the discovery of America. But Lobia is a native of East Africa. It is widely bred in India, Indochina, Africa. The Latin name for lobia is "dolichos", which means "long". This refers to the length of the plant itself.

So what is lobia? Let's start with the seeds. They differ from beans very sharply - they are smaller, almost spherical, the bell is surrounded first by a white, then by a darker spot, usually black or black-brown. The color of the seed itself is beige or pinkish-brown, sometimes white or almost black.

Lobia grows in the subtropics, therefore it loves warmth and sun very much. Even in Georgia, it does not ripen everywhere. And in central Russia, it is planted only by seedlings, and not at all for the sake of seeds. Here, no one has any idea that this beautifully flowering plant is a vegetable. Until recently, lobia seeds could only be bought from old women in the bazaar. The names "lobia", "dolichos" are not known here, but there are their own, no less exotic - curly lilac, curly hyacinth, hyacinth beans. Dolichos leaves are similar to common beans; in the same way, long peduncles with medium-sized (1-1.5 cm) flowers develop from the axils of the leaves.

The color of the flower is clear from the name - lilac, hyacinth. They are lilac, lilac-pink, sometimes purple, in a dense brush. The smell is strong, pleasant. Dolichos climbing plant, used to decorate verandas, gazebos, balconies, lashes from 1.5 to 3 meters long. Prefers sunny, sheltered from the wind places and loose, rather moist soil. Dolichos is very handsome and it is a pity that he is little known. From seedlings, he normally develops even in Siberia. In addition to mature seeds, which you almost certainly will not wait, its young green fruits are eaten, they are medium-sized - 4-8 cm in length, hanging or sticking out horizontally. They are harvested young and soft, boiled and used for various types of lobio and soups.

All kinds of beans and beans can be used to make lobio. For all legumes, the longer the seeds are stored, the worse they boil. Fresh ones can be cooked immediately, while dry ones are pre-soaked in water for several hours and cooked in the same water without salt. If the water has boiled away, you can add boiling water to it, if you add cold water, the seeds of the legumes harden and never boil over. For the same reason, they are not salted until the end of cooking. Lobia cooks faster than beans or peas.

And at the end of the recipe: boil green pods in salted water for about five minutes, drain in a colander. Then fry them in vegetable oil, add finely chopped carrots, bell peppers, zucchini and eggplant. Put everything in a small saucepan in layers, sprinkle with herbs and spices. Pour over boiling tomato sauce and simmer for 5-10 minutes, covered. Served cold. It's very tasty, cook it - you won't regret it! In summer, the sauce can be replaced with slices of fresh, colorful tomatoes.

Valery Brizhan, experienced gardener