This is a recipe I found in a book by the Australian Women's Weekly, which specifies “snake beans”. As usual, the quantities are just plain wrong; the requirement for 560 g of beans is particularly strange. This is an attempt to improve on them. I also have an alternative recipe.

quantity		ingredient		step
12 g		coriander		1
40 g		ghee		2
15 g		ginger		2
15 g		garlic		2
5 g		fresh medium hot red chilies, or		2
0.5 g		hot chili powder		2
5 g		black mustard seed		3
250 g		fresh green beans		4
2 stalks		curry leaves		4
100 ml		coconut milk, not “lite”		5
7 g		salt		5
		fresh coriander leaves		6

Procedure

Start 45 minutes before serving.

1. Grind the coriander.

2. Finely chop ginger, garlic and chilis and fry in ghee.

3. When nearly done, add coriander and whole black mustard seed and continue frying until warm.

4. Meanwhile, chop the beans into lengths of about 10 cm. When the mixture is warm, add the beans and curry leaves and stir fry for a couple of minutes.

   
   

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5. Add coconut milk and a little water if necessary, cover and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. They should still be crunchy.

    

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6. Garnish lavishly with chopped coriander leaves and serve.

Notes

This dish can be quite raw; the original recipe hardly cooked the beans at all. Arguably they shouldn't be simmered, but I find them better that way.

The original recipe calls for snake beans, but on 2 February 2023 we found them somewhat tough. The alternatives are to cook them until they're soft, or use normal green beans.