Haitian Legumes

Submitted by Manami

"This is another one of my favorites that we used to serve as a whole meal with some rice and fried plantains. It is one of the best ways to serve eggplant; with cabbage, carrots, spinach, watercress, & chayotte. I have had it as a meatless dish and also, with crab, or beef & beef bones with marrow. This is a combination of many recipes and in my attempt to get the right amounts to post I may have had to guesstimate a few times. Please forgive me!"

 

• Ready In: 2hrs 15mins
• Ingredients: 22
• Serves: 6-8

ingredients

• 2 lbs round steaks, trimmed of all fat and cut into 2-inch cubes
• 1⁄4 - 1⁄2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 eggplant, chopped into 2-inch cubes
• 1 chayote (militon)
• 2 green bell peppers, chopped into 2-inch pieces, divided
• 3 scallions, chopped fine
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 large head of cabbage, remove outer leaves, core and chop into 2-inch pieces
• 20 ounces frozen fordhook lima beans
• 12 ounces frozen string beans, chopped into 2-inch pieces
• 2 -3 peeled and sliced carrots, into 2-inch pieces
• 1 (10 ounce) box frozen chopped spinach
• 1 bunch watercress, chopped
• 4 -5 Maggi chicken cubes (chicken bouillon soup cubes)
• 1⁄2 - 3⁄4 cup tomato paste
• 2 -3 lemons, juice of
• salt, to taste
• fresh ground black pepper, to taste
• garlic powder, to taste
• haitian spicy vinegar (Pikliz my Spicy Vinegar of Haiti - Picklese (Pikliz))
• seasoning, powder (Adobo seasoning)

directions

1. Wash beef with lime juice, & salt; allow to marinate for 10 minutes.
2. Rinse with cold water.
3. Make a paste from green pepper, green onions, parsley, garlic and vinegar; rub it on meat and let marinate for about 30 minutes.
4. Brown beef in small amount of oil.
5. Add tomato paste, seasonings and water to cover the beef.
6. Add chopped green bell pepper and place on top of the beef while it is cooking.
7. Let the beef cook until tender, continually adding tomato paste mixture as needed, so beef does not burn or dry out.
8. After meat is tender, bring a large pot with a medium amount of water to a boil and start placing in the vegetables.
9. First, add the cabbage and eggplant, next add the lima beans and green beans. Add the carrots, and chayottes - allow to steam until somewhat tender, then add spinach and watercress.
10. Pour some oil over the vegetables, add the butter and 1 Maggi cube - continue to let steam till tender.
11. Once tender, add the vegetables to beef mixture and stir everything together.
12. Let cook for another 10-20 minutes.
13. Taste, adjust seasonings.
14. If necessary, add another Maggi cube.
15. Taste again, and adjust all the seasonings.
16. This also goes very well with white rice and black beans or kidney beans, that have been cooked down and blended in a blender to make sauce pois(bean sauce).
17. Enjoy!

Reviews

[Layla E.]

This was delicious. I made it without meat by subbing broth for water and just skipping the marinating steps. And I used sofrito instead of blending the stuff together since it’s basically the same thing. And I slow cooked for a few hours but besides that no other changes to the recipe. I think I followed it pretty closely and it turned out great

 

[otonyebraide]

Great recipe! My haitian and non-haitian friends who tried it, loved it. In my case, I used goat meat and fresh zipper peas because I don't do beef often and was too lazy to go by lima beans and green beans. Still turned out wonderful! <br/>This dish is Delicious and I look forward to making this more often! :)

 

[Amandad1]

Thanks for sharing the recipe. I wanted a refresher and was happy to find it. I would like to comment though that before adding the beef, the vegetables can be squashed with a fork or a pestle handle. This makes for a nicer texture. You can however try to avoid doing it to the carrots and lima beans if you'd prefer.

 

[nmarcelin]

My boyfriend is a old fashion Haitian man that is uses to his Haitian crusine. When he moved to Texas away from his mother that would spoil him with his Haitian dishes this man became very demanding of me to make his favorite dish Legume. Now myself being a bahamian/haitian raised in American I had no clue on where to being when making Legume, but thankful for this recipe I found here on food.com because it save me and my man's stomach LOL!!! You would think I've been cooking haitian food from birth!

 

[razzberry]

This was Delicious! I didnt have any eggplant on hand but had all the other ingredients, but it was still good! Next time I will definitely add eggplant for the authentic Legume dish, it tastes just like the ones they serve in the Haitian restaurants.