From a young age I remember jars of curried green beans my Mum made served with dinner or BBQ’s as a summer salad. I also recall warm days sitting at the kitchen table with a large bag of green beans in the middle and my sister and I stringing, topping and tailing an entire bag weighing about 20 lbs. It was A LOT of green beans. I used to feel bad for my sister as she disliked green beans intensely, and there she was, topping, tailing and working with the very veg she disliked. Amazingly enough, it never put me off them … though, to this day, I hesitate before buying them, and if I do, enough for one small pot! We eat them as a relish, I never buy enough to serve them as a salad, LOL. I found a recipe I had written up in February, 1987. It’s pretty funny to read young vegetarian me (see last pic). The old time warp recipe calls for 2 kg ‘s green beans. Not. Gonna. Happen. Here.

Here is my throw together recipe and it’s great to have with cold cuts or grilled meats.

Ingredients:

• 1 small (about 1 lb) bag young green beans, diced
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 tblsp turmeric
• 1 tblsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 3 tblsp black mustard seeds
• 2 tblsp garam masala
• 3 tblsp oil
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup brown keto sugar, or 3/4 if you like sweeter relish
• 5 chopped dried apricots or any dried fruit, raisins or sultanas
• 5 large cloves garlic
• Salt to taste

Heat your pot slightly, add all the spices to the dry pot (no oil yet! ) and toast them gently, until very aromatic. Let spices cool until warm. Add oil to spices and heat until bubbling, add chopped onions and when softened, add chopped beans, but heck, add more spices if you like it very seasoned and then add apple cider vinegar. Let simmer for 15 minutes. Then add sugar, chopped fruit and garlic. Simmer until beans are cooked, but not too soft or mushy, about another 15 minutes or so. Bottle and keep in fridge, it keeps about 3 to 4 week’s.

Served with a meatloaf bake I made a little while ago. Also plated is daikon radish pickle and steamed cauliflower with cumin and caraway seeds.

Here is my goofy recipe from back in the day. Seems like I’ve been cooking up recipes from scratch for a while.

Please note metric from when I lived in ZAR. I miss metric so much… *maizena = cornflour. *go mal = go crazy in surfer speak