Quick and Easy Sweet Black-Eyed Beans
Delicious, Traditional Goan Sweet Beans
Sweet black-eyed beans (chawli, white or brown) is a traditional but forgotten Goan tea-time snack. It’s tasty, nutritious, and super-easy to make. We need just a handful of ingredients to make this sweet – chawli or black-eyed beans (both white and brown chawli can be used), jaggery (palm or cane jaggery or a mix of both), grated fresh coconut, and some ground cardamom. As a special ingredient, you could add chopped cashew nuts.
The mix of jaggery and fresh coconut is called ‘chun’ in Konkani. And since beans are called ‘chuvodeo’, in Goa this sweet dish is also called ‘chuvodeachem chun’. For this recipe, the beans have to be cooked till they’re nice and soft.
I remember my mother making this as a tea time treat when I was a kid in school. And I was particularly fond of this dish. Don’t be surprised if it becomes your family’s favourite snack too. Just remember this dish is meant to be enjoyed right away. But you could store it in the fridge and finish it within 3 days too. And yes, you could enjoy it hot or cold. Your choice!
In an age of fast foods, two other delicious Goan tea time treats that have been forgotten, but are worth checking out, are Goan Sheero and Goan Goddxem.
Ingredients
1 cup chawli (200g)
1 cup grated fresh coconut
¾ cup grated jaggery
2 tbsp chopped cashew nuts (optional)
½ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp salt
Procedure
- Wash the black-eyed peas / beans or chawli as they’re called in India twice or thrice wih plenty of water and then soak them in 3 cups of water either overnight or for at least 5 to 6 hours.
- Drain the water away. Add fresh water to the beans, just enough so that the water level is around ½” above that of the beans. Add in the salt, and then cook them in a pressure cooker. After the cooker comes to full pressure, lower the heat and let the beans cook for 4 – 5 minutes under pressure.
- Drain the excess water from the chawli. Let the beans cool down a little.
- Mix the grated coconut, grated jaggery, and the ground cardamom.
- Mix in the chawli and gently mix everything. Mix in some chopped cashew nuts. These sweet beans can be enjoyed either hot or cold.
Enjoy!