Four-angled Beans

Pheww!! The weather has been scorching hot and dry recently...my family call this weather 'Lunar New Year' weather as it makes its appearance around January and February just in time for the celebrations. Sigh, means we have to be extra careful NOT to gorge ourselves silly with too much oily or fried delicacies and to drink lots of water. The lunar celebration falls on 23 January (Monday) this year :)

the ones with the frilly bits!

We have been eating quite a lot of home-grown four-angled bean lately. A tropical legume plant, it is also known as Winged Bean, Winged Pea, Goa Bean, Princess Bean (?!), Manila Bean & Dragon Bean (Local name: Kacang Botol) (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus). Phew, that's quite a list of alternative names! Note that some sites list an alternate name as 'Asparagus Bean' (lotus tetragonolobus), but it is not the same although the bean looks similar as it .

I planted 5 store bought seeds in mid July 2011 but only 2 germinated. On hindsight, the seeds should have been nicked first and then soaked in water overnight before planting to ensure a higher germination rate as the seed coat is quite thick.

Once it grew sufficient leaves, they were planted next to the corn stalks as the idea was to assist in enriching the surrouding soil due to its nitrogen fixing ability. It grows by vining its stem and leaves around and began to produce flower buds (usually in clusters of 4-5) in mid October 2011, just before the monsoon rains started in earnest.

I was worried that the heavy rains will detach the delicate flowers from the main stem and although quite a few met with this fate, some did survived the water onslaught to produce delicious seed pods! :)

The flowers are a delicate pale blue/lavender colour and will last about 4-5 days before drying up and falling off leaving a young green pod behind. Not all flowers produce pods though, maybe those were not visited by bees! Also, it seems if a flower falls off together with its individual stem, a seed pod will not be produced.

Hence, I'm very careful when snipping off a mature pod so that the main stem is not shaken too much. I use a scissors for this because the pod's stem is too tough to break using fingers.

maturing pod as tips are still green

 
The green pod has 4 flanges(?)/sides/wings with an uneven edge/frill at the end. The pods can be eaten young but I only harvest when they reach about 6 inches (15 cm). More of them to eat I say, ha!!

 
Once the pods are washed, the tip-end brown parchment covering cut off and, what I call, stringy bits pulled out, I normally cook them in a stir-fry or lightly blanched in boiling water. It can also be eaten raw as a salad with or without dressing (wonder if it would taste good with Thousand Island or Mayo dressing though?).

sorry! focus was way off but wanted to show what's inside :)

Ohh, its advisable to only pick the pods just before cooking or at least on the day you want to cook them since just leaving them around after picking (even if kept in the fridge) will cause the pod to turn a darker green, the skin tougher and turn the uneven/frilly bits brown/black. Trust me, it's NOT an appetising sight.

What does the bean taste like? Well, crunchy and slightly tart and one can feel the soft seeds while chewing. An article I read decribed the taste as a cross between snow peas and asparagus.

Seems like the whole plant, young leaves, flowers, pods, seed (peas) and roots (tubers) are edible, but I've only ever eaten the pods. The young leaves can be cooked like a spinach, cooked flowers taste like mushrooms (yum!) or eaten raw in a salad and the tubers roasted, steamed and boiled just like potatoes. Arghhh, what have I been missing??

The seeds inside the pods will only mature when pods turn deep red or brown and is harvested and cooked like peas. Hmmm, I love green peas (well, the frozen ones we get here are called 'green peas', am not sure if they came from sweet peas or similar), so I'll let the next emerging pods mature fully to try winged-bean peas! :)

Of course, I'll only dig up the tubers once the plants have finished flowering :) Hmm, since its a perennial plant in Malaysia, I wonder HOW long it will continue to flower and produce pods before saying 'Adieu!'. There are still lots of side-shoots growing with flower clusters on them at the moment.

It's a plant that thrives in hot & humid climes and during the recent monsoon rains and colder days, I noticed that some of the stems turned brown & wilted, lots of leaves turned yellow and flowers dropped. Perhaps it was due to stress from over-watering or the colder temperature.

For more information, these sites may be of help; above link, here and here (for info on seed buying).

To all my readers celebrating the Lunar New Year, here's wishing you a Roaring Dragon Year ahead!! Shin Nien Kuai Le, Man Shi Lu Yi!