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main dish vegan

Batar daan

A simple Timorese stew of maize, mung beans and pumpkin, cooked with onion and garlic.

Eaten in: Timor-Leste

Prep: 15 min
Cooking: 50 min
Resting: 2 h
Total: 3 h 5 min
Servings: 4

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About the dish

Batar daan is one of the best-known dishes of Timor-Leste, and its name in Tetum means roughly ‘cooked maize’. Maize kernels are simmered slowly with mung beans and chunks of pumpkin until the pumpkin breaks down and thickens the pot, and it is all seasoned with onion, garlic and salt. It is filling, inexpensive food made from crops grown in home gardens, cooked especially where maize rather than rice is the staple. It is eaten on its own or alongside rice, fish or vegetables, with a fiery sambal for seasoning.

Main ingredients

maize
mung beans
pumpkin
onion
garlic

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Batar daan

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/batar-daan

Ingredients

4 servings

150 g mung beans
400 g maize kernels (fresh, frozen or tinned)
500 g pumpkin, peeled and diced
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbsp oil
about 800 ml water
1 tsp salt and pepper to taste

Method

Rinse the mung beans and soak them in cold water for 2 hours, then drain.
Heat the oil in a pot and soften the onion and garlic.
Add the beans and water, bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes until the beans begin to soften.
Add the maize and pumpkin and cook for another 20–25 minutes, stirring now and then, until the pumpkin breaks down and the stew thickens.
Season with salt and pepper; if it is too thick, add a splash of water.
Serve warm, on its own or with rice, with sambal for seasoning.