Loubieh Bi Zeit (Lebanese Beans)

This is a Lebanese dish that is naturally plant based. It seems to have many different anglicisations: I've seen all of Loubieh Bi Zeit, Loubye Bzeit, Loubia B'zeit and Al-Loubiyah. This version has slightly more tomato than other recipes, though for a more authentic version you can remove the crushed tomatoes and just use more tomato paste.

Stats

• Time : 90 minutes
• Difficulty : 2/5
• Taste : 4/5

Ingredients

To serve 8

• 2 large onions, sliced into semi-circles
• 12-18 cloves of garlic, smashed/roughly minced
• about 800g of snake beans or green beans, rinsed
• 1-2 tsp of cinnamon powder
• 4 tbsp of tomato paste
• 2x400ml cans of crushed tomato
• 1-2 tsp of vege stock powder
• salt and pepper to taste
• rice to serve

Method

Chop the onion and get it cooking in a big pot with some oil. Get it a bit translucent before adding the garlic and cooking for a bit more until its slightly browned.

Put the rice on now so its ready by the time you're eating.

Add the tomato paste and cinnamon and cook for about 30 seconds. Afterwards, add the crushed tomatoes, beans and stock powder and turn down the heat to simmer.

Cover the pot and let everything cook for between 30 minutes and an hour, adding salt and pepper to taste. The beans should soften up a lot and absorb the flavour of the tomato and garlic.

To make this a full meal, I serve it with pan-fried firm tofu and rice, though it goes well as a side dish as well -- Enjoy!