“Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart; the more you eat, the more you…”

keep it classy, apparently.

Beans are a funny food. I don’t know about you, but where I grew up beans were not a cool food. Eating beans at a barbecue was the equivalent of eating a banana at lunch during high school, eating chow mein at your work desk, or eating KFC as a food blogger: delicious, but you wouldn’t want to be the one caught doing it.

Well, those days are over now . Today I present to you a bean dish that is lightly flavored, easily transported, and shockingly sophisticated. This bean  is appropriate for most any occasion, and leaves behind no mess like edamame does. Instead of a little black dress, I give you the little black bean:

Sexy, huh? This dish is most commonly seen in Korean fare, and called kongjaban. It’s served as a side dish along with an assortment of lightly pickled vegetables to accompany your main meal. These (unlimited! free!) side dishes, called banchan,  are actually my favorite part of any Korean meal. Oftentimes I’ll just order a bowl of rice to eat with the banchan. This is highly – and understandably – frowned upon in Korean restaurants and I recommend that if you want to do the same, you dine with a large group of people who will order real dishes. But since I don’t have large groups of people with whom to eat Korean food regularly, I’ve committed this summer to learning how to make some of my own favorite banchan to keep in large quantities at home.

First on my list was the incredibly easy kongjaban. These beans can be purchased uncooked at any Asian grocery store:

The traditional recipe calls for a ton of soy sauce aud sugar, but I rummaged around my kitchen to see if I couldn’t healthify it a touch. This is what I came up with:

Kongjaban Recipe
Time: 40 minutes (plus optional 2-hour pre-soak)
Equipment: Small boiling pot; small bowl for mixing
Ingredients:

• 1 cup beans
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup agave
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
• additional water, as needed
• optional: sesame seeds, for garnish

Instructions:

1. Optional: rinse and  soak the beans in water for 2+ hours, to soften them and reduce cooking time. If you forget, you can just start with Step 2.
2. Bring the water to boil in your small pot.
3. Add beans, cover, and reduce to simmer.
4. Simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, mix agave, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a small bowl.
6. Add agave/soy/oil mix to beans.
7. Continue to simmer for 20 minutes. There should be nearly no liquid left by the end of the process.
8. Remove from heat and and mix in sesame seeds, if desired.

You can store these babies in the fridge and eat them cold alongside or on top of any meal for a dose of protein.  Versatile, healthy, and otherwise inoffensive, you can eat little black beans anywhere without attracting weird looks. Though, I can’t make the same claim for their after-effects on the digestive tract…har har…

Any foods/venues you can think of that are incompatible? Anyone else get self-conscious like me to eat certain of your most beloved foods in public?

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