Never throw away your over-ripe plantain!!! There are so many delicious foods you can make with it and one of those foods is what this blog post is about.

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That said, let me do a brief introduction of the two major ingredients I will be using for this recipe- Brown Beans and Plantains.

We have different types of beans in NIgeria but the three (3) commonly cooked types are;

1. Oloyin beans –  Many people also call it honey beans. “oloyin” is a yoruba word  which literarily means “to have honey” or could be used to figuratively describe something that is sweet and tasty. This type of beans is usually light brown in colour and it is popular because of its distinctively sweet taste when cooked and also because it gets well cooked fast when compared to the various cooking times of the other types of brown beans we have. Oloyin beans is more expensive than the other types of beans because it is  always in high demand as a result of its sweet taste and cooking time

   

2. Drum beans – this type of beans is also brown in colour but it has a darker shade of brown when compared with oloyin beans.  It is also called Olotu beans in many Nigerian markets.
3. White beans – Some people call this type of beans Iron beans or Black-eyed beans. When compared with the other types of beans mentioned above, iron beans cooks faster and it is also cheaper because the demand for white beans is not as high as the  demand for brown beans.

Beans and plantains recipes and dishes are so popular in many households that there are a lot of delicious recipes made from both ingredients separately or together.

Some common beans recipes are;

• EWA AGOYIN RECIPE
• Beans Porridge
• Moi moi (beans pudding)
• Akara
• Adalu (beans and corn porridge/pottage)
• Ekuru / Ofuloju and Ata din din (white beans pudding with fried stew)
• Beans and yam porridge
• Beans and sweet potatoes porridge
• Beans and Cocoyam porridge
• Beans and rice with stew
• Beans and Plantain porridge
• And many more

Also, some common Nigerian plantain recipes are;

• Dodo (fried plantain)
• Dodo Ikire
• Plantain mosa
• Plantain Moi moi
• Plantain and Yam porridge
• Plantain porridge
• Ripe plantain chips
• Unripe plantain chips
• Plantain fufu
• And many more.

The above mentioned recipes are just to mention a few, beans or plantains recipes are very common street foods that can be easily bought from roadside/street food vendors and bukas. As a matter of fact you will hardly find a food stand without beans or plantain on their menu.

But one major discouraging factor when it comes to cooking beans is its long cooking time. When compared to rice, beans takes a longer time to be properly cooked and ready to eat.

Another reason is that after eating beans, you may feel bloated, the need to relax (lol) sluggish, sleepy etc.

While growing up, cooking beans was reserved for saturdays only because it takes a long time to be properly cooked and we did not have the luxury of time on weekdays because we had to go to school and my parents had to go to work.

The good thing is, I will be explaining how to reduce the beans cooking time and also what to do to avoid being bloated when you cook/eat beans.

Enough of the introduction, let’s move on to the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups oloyin beans (honey beans)
• 2 medium sized onions
• 3 table spoons ginger powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 tablespoons crayfish powder
• 1 small seasoning cube
• 3 table spoons chilli pepper powder
• 1/4 cup palm oil
• over ripe plantains

PREPARTION

• Pour beans into a big bowl and thoroughly pick out the beans chaff stones and dirt.
• Pour the picked beans into a big bowl of water and rinse the beans with water only by lightly washing with your hands
• Scoop the beans into a basket and set aside
• Peel the plantains and set it aside
• Diced the onions and also set it aside
• Pour water into a pot

If you feel bloated when you eat beans do this first – pour the beans in to the water and boil for 10 minutes then drain the water, set aside, add fresh clean water and continue with the steps.

• Add the diced onions,3 table spoons of ginger and allow it to boil – the ginger will help to soften the beans fast. Some people also use potash 
• Add washed beans to the boiling water
• Mix properly and cook for 30 minutes on high heat
• After 30 minutes, check the softness of the beans to know if the beans needs more water
• If needed, add more water and cook the beans till it is very soft – I cooked my beans for extra 15 minutes using a gas cooker to achieve the softness i want, although it takes half that time with a pressure cooker.
• After 15 extra minutes, add salt, crayfish powder and crushed seasoning cube
• Stir and cook for 10 minutes
• After 10 minutes – now the beans is already soft and ready to eat.
• Add the over ripe plantains and palm oil.
• Cook for 10-15 more minutes while stirring the beans pottage at intervals so that it does not stick to the pot and start burning.

This is applicable even when you are using non-stick cookware

• After 15 minutes, delicious Beans and plantain pottage is ready.