This is one of my favourite Iraqi tomato curry / stew and am glad my kids like it too. It is delicious and brings me warm memories of family gatherings and spoons hitting plates and clinking between moments of silence that breaks the chatter across the table. This is a lovely comfort giving dish with hearty tomato sauce and succulent meat pieces and soft green beans. This dish can be vegetarian by omitting out the meat and is served with white rice. You can make it when green beans are in season or you can buy frozen or jared beans for this dish.
The spices that is traditionally used are cumin, turmeric and pinch of coriander. Using allspice or curry spice is okay to use if you don’t have the above. Usually I only add cumin and turmeric I find it works really well with the green beans and I don’t want to take a lot of the tomato flavour in the curry.
For the meat you have an option of beef or lamb cut into small pieces or cubes.
I usually use pressure cooker when making meat stew, this make stew process so much faster. I cook the meat first then I add the green beans, I don’t want to over cook them and loose their flavour and shape.
Ingredients
2 table spoon of oil
bowl of lamb around 75 to 50 kg
1 large onion
1 can chopped tomato
2 table spoons of tomato puree
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of cumin
Seasoning
0.50 kg of fresh green beans or frozen (you can use 1 can or 1 jar of green beans)
Squeeze of fresh lemon
Method
Step 1- Add two tablespoons of oil to a large pot and brown the meat then add chopped onion. Fry till meat is brown and onion is softened.
Step 2- Add chopped tomato and tomato puree, stir well and add water to cover the meat.
Step 3- Add seasoning and spices. store well and leave to cook till meat is tender.
Step 4- Once meat is tender add the green beans and squeeze some lemon juice (not too much!) and cook for 5 minutes and simmer for another 5 minutes.
Step 5- The sauce should be thick , you can reduce the thickness by adding more water or the opposite by adding tomato puree.
Cups & Dishes 