Ibiharage/Rwandan Fried Beans ~~ Rwandan Cuisine

After 'Q',come on lets go to Central africa, exactly to Rwanda. Since am running a month of blogging marathon with Around the world in 30days as theme with alphabets,i picked Rwandan cuisine for the alphabet 'R'.Rwandan food tends to be simple, made with locally-grown ingredients.Lunch and dinner may consist of boiled beans, bananas, sweet potatoes or cassava. Umutsima (a dish of cassava and corn), isombe (cassava leaves with Eggplant and spinach) and mizuzu (fried plantains) are common dishes. Porridge is the traditional breakfast and meat is seldom eaten outside the cities due to its expense. Though stews are often flavoured with dried fish and meat, as is common in much of Africa. Flaked and dried fish is sometimes cooked with Chicken, yam, onions, various spices and water to prepare a flavored stew.The Rwandan diet is fairly starch-heavy. At a local restaurant you will find an array of starches - rice, crepes, cassava, sweet potatoes, chips (as in fried potatoes) and matooke (starchy bananas).If you're not meat lovers, you'll probably end up eating mostly starches, which are more than likely fried. Dinner is the heaviest meal. Between meals, Rwandans often snack on fruits. Tropical fruits such as avocados, bananas, mangos and papaya are abundant in Rwanda. Roadside vendors in urban areas sell roasted corn and barbecued meat. In all of Rwanda, women are the ones who take care of cooking and they mainly stick to preparing beer, bananas and other simple to make dishes. Cooking is done in multiple ways such as roasting, baking, boiling, mashing, and spicing. cassava plants are mostly consumed as cooked greens. The most traditional meats that are still consumed in some parts of Rwanda are those hunted in the forests. Another interesting specific cooking method involves "Isombe", which are the green leaves from the manioc plant. The leaves get finely mashed and look a bit like spinach while the roots of the plant are used to make flour-like ingredients.

Since beans are the most staple food to the most Rwandan families,fried beans is quite a famous and traditional recipe of Rwanda, this fried beans are usually served with rice, and Rwandan chicken eventhough the traditional way of serving Rwandan chicken is, along with rice. This fried beans goes for white beans, both canned or dried,soaked beans works prefect for this recipe. However i opted for the canned ones as they are easily available here. The speciality of this fried beans is this dish is prepared completely with grounded red bellpepper paste.I served Ibiharage with tandoori chicken drumstick for our lunch and we had super filling lunch.

Recipe source: Recipes Around the World
4cups Cooked white beans (canned)
1cup Red bellpepper (grounded as fine paste)
3nos Onions (chopped finely)
4nos Garlic cloves (minced)
2tbsp Oil
Salt
Pepper powder

Heat oil in a large skillet in medium flame. Add the chopped onions,minced garlic and saute until onions are soft.

Add beans,red bellpepper puree, salt , pepper and stir, put the flame in simmer and cook for 10-12minutes.

Serve as a side dis with chicken and rice.

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