French Beans Curry

French beans are universal and so are the diversity in the dishes made out of them. This french beans curry recipe has been passed on to me by my mother. Her cooking is nonparallel and so is her teachings. When it comes to cooking my mom is my teacher. She usually directed me to do one task while something was on stove. However each time the task was different. After some time she directed me to perform combination of tasks .Then came the time when she only asked  "Honey!! would u like to prepare the curry for the dinner tonight". That's how i leaned cooking. I was always ignorant of the fact that by performing single task i m learning how to do one, and it was a gradual ignorant process of me learning how to cook. I never realized that i unknowingly have learnt cooking until one day i prepared curry of my own version . I was always hopping around in kitchen when i was 11 years old and by 16 i knew how to prepare dinner, which usually served 4. Whenever i was at home during holidays i would cook for my family. My dad would always  love whatever i cooked.
And i carried this cooking legacy forward to my college where cooking was not allowed. But life is so dull unless and until you have never broken any rules. Sometimes my canteen food tasted yakky so i arranged for 1 small portable heater and a sauce pan. Whenever i didn't feel like turning to the canteen i Prepared quite a few things using the sauce pan. My friends would always praise me for what ever i cooked. There were two reasons they did that...1. Few genuinely found my cooking good while 2. others were only concerned with the their part ha ha(Hostel is a mixture of unique people). Oh i miss my college days, lots of fun and hungama.

Coming back to the cooking of the french beans curry, it is quite a simple recipe and easy one. It tastes wonderful with rice, parothas , puris and chapati.
This recipe serves- 4
Preparation time- 10 minutes
Cooking time- 20 minutes.

Ingredients:

• French beans- 250 g, cut into 1inch length
• Potato- 1, large, sliced into quarters
• Onion-1, sliced
• Cumin seeds- 1 Tsp
• Oil- 1 Tbsp
• Tomato- 1, chopped
• Turmeric powder- 1 Tsp
• Coriander powder- 1 Tbsp
• Cumin powder- 1 Tsp
• Pepper powder- 1/2 Tsp
• Green chilly- 1
• Salt as per taste
• Water- 1 cup

Direction:

• Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in a pan or Kadai in medium to high heat.
• Add the cumin seeds and let it crackle. Once cumin seeds starts crackling, add the onions and green chilly.
• Saute onion until they are translucent.
• Add the french beans and potato. Season with salt. Toss for a while then cover and cook until both beans and potato are half cooked. Stir in between to avoid burning of the vegetables.
• Add the masala's and tomato, fry until tomato is done.
• Taste the masala if its tastes good to you it means that its done. Add the water else fry for some more time and then add the water. Cover and let this simmer for 5 minutes in low heat. Once you have the gravy of desired consistency , you may turn off the heat,

Serve hot with Rice, chapati, parotha or puri's. It is a perfect side dish curry. 

Enjoy and Happy cooking !!!!!!!!!!

By- Sushmita Pandit.