Taro & White Bean Curry
Taro & White Bean Curry
Chunks of soft taro and white beans combine for a thick, hearty texture, while a peppercorn-infused coconut paste gives the vegan stew a spicy kick.
Ready in: 2 hours 30 minutes
Serves: 4
Complexity: very-easy
kcal: 322
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Ingredients
2 cups taro roots, peeled & diced
1 cup white beans, soaked and boiled
1 cup fresh/frozen coconut
5-10 black peppercorns
½ tsp SIDS CRAZY SALT
2 sprigs fresh curry leaves
salt to taste
Directions
Soak the white beans in hot water for a couple of hours. Boil in salted water until soft. Wash and peel the taro and cut it into cubes. Wash in running water until most of the slime is gone. Place it in a big pot of salted water, bring to a boil, drain and keep aside. Grind coconut and black pepper into a smooth paste, adding water if required. Combine SIDS CRAZY SALT and all the ingredients in a pot then bring to a boil. Add salt and curry leaves then let it simmer for 2 minutes until the curry leaves infuses its aroma into the curry.
Serve hot over rice or with roti.
History: This plant and its root is generally called taro, but it has different names in different countries like for instance eddoe, or malanga. The plant is called tales in Java, cocoyam in Ghana, taro in Tahiti, ndalo in Fiji, talo in Samoa, gabi in the Philippines, colcas in Arabic, kolokasi or kolokas in Cyprus, kalo in Hawaii and amateke in Rwanda. Taro is often referred to as "elephant ears" when grown as an ornamental plant.
Taro is one of the most ancient cultivated crops. Taro is found widely in tropical and subtropical regions of South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea and northern Australia and is highly polymorphic, making taxonomy and distinction between wild and cultivated types difficult. It is believed that they were domesticated independently multiple times, with authors giving possible locations as New Guinea, Mainland Southeast Asia, and northeastern India, based largely on the assumed native range of the wild plants. However, more recent studies have pointed out that wild taro may have a much larger native distribution than previously believed and wild breeding types may also likely be indigenous to other parts of Island Southeast Asia.
Archaeological traces of taro exploitation have been recovered from numerous sites, though whether these were cultivated or wild types can not be ascertained. They include the Niah Caves of Borneo, dated to <40,000 BC; Ille Cave of Palawan, dated to at least c. 11,000 BC; Kuk Swamp of New Guinea, dated to 10,200 to 9,910 cal BC; and Kilu Cave in the Solomon Islands dated to around c. 28,000-20,000 BC. It should be noted that in the case of Kuk Swamp, there is evidence of formalized agriculture emerging by about c. 10,000 BC, with evidence of cultivated plots, though which plant was cultivated remains unknown.
Taro were carried into the Pacific Islands by Austronesian peoples from around 1300 BC, where they became a staple crop of Polynesians, along with other types of "taros", like Alocasia macrorrhizos, Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, and Cyrtosperma merkusii. They are the most important and the most preferred among the four, because they were less likely to contain the irritating raphides present in the other plants. Taro is also identified as one of the staples of Micronesia, from archaeological evidence dating back to the pre-colonial Latte Period (c. 900 - 1521 AD), indicating that it was also carried by Micronesians when they colonized the islands. Taro pollen and starch residue have also been identified in Lapita sites, dated to around c. 3,050 - 2,500 cal BC.