I absolutely love beans. Baked beans is my favourite but in the past year, I’ve started adding other beans with more protein and less carbs into my diet.

I made this dish because I wanted to spoil my cousins Shamin and Varuna, who I hadn’t seen since last year. I had four leftover patty pans in the fridge and a bag of frozen cooked black beans, so I decided to make a meatball-looking dish with a hot tomato-based gravy. Since it was supper, I would eat this plain, but you can also make it with fluffy quinoa, millet, bulgar wheat, or enjoy it with roti, or some brown pita bread.

Below is the carb content of various beans per 1/2 cup so you can decide what bean ball you’d like to make if you don’t have the black bean:

Blackbean, 20 g

Pinto bean, 22 g

Pink Sugar bean, 24 g

Dark Red Kidney bean, 19 g

Most types of dry beans are rich sources of iron, which makes them important for vegetarians and vegans. I also always tend to buy dry beans because they’re cheaper.

Ingredients

1 cup black beans

1/4 up of Teff flour (any colour Teff is fine) (If you don’t have Teff, any flour will do)

1 egg

1 tsp salt

1 tsp jeera powder

1 tsp garam masala

1 tbsp olive oil

Chutney ingredients

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tomatoes

2-3 green chillies

1 onion diced

1 tsp chillie powder

1 tsp garlic and ginger

1 tsp garam masala

patty pans/mushrooms

1 tsp jeera powder

Method

1. In a pan, cover the base with spray and cook and drop 1 tbsp sized balls into the pan. Keep shaking the pan until all the little balls are sealed with a little bit of colour. You can use oil if you want - the option is all yours.

2. In the same pan, add a teaspoon of oil and make a tomato chutney by frying the onions in mustard seeds. Add ginger and garlic.

3. Grate the tomato’s and add salt and spices to it. Pour it into the pan and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of water.

4. After another minute or two, drop in the little fake meatballs and patty pans.

5. Let the dish simmer for 10 minutes on a very lot heat. Stir occasionally and adding more water if necessary.

6. The dish is ready when the chutney is done. Give it a taste and if you’re not diabetic, add a 1/2 tsp of sugar to the dish for even more flavour.

7. Garnish with spring onion.