Indian Spicy Green Beans (Masaledar Sem): Madhur Jaffrey's "Indian Cooking"

It's funny, I took all these pictures are at different points in the cooking process and they all look exactly the same...I don't know if that's good because the beans never got to the point where they looked over-cooked, or if that's bad because there's some freakish genetic modification made to the green bean plant to make it stay green even when North Americans over-cook it (or stew it, like what's called for in Indian dishes).

This is a good recipe for fresh green beans. When green beans are not so fresh and they taste chewy and waxy it's not so spectacular. Still, it's not bad, and it's very healthy, so if you're looking for a side dish of green with a non-creamy sauce, this is a good choice.
Normally I'd never make a side dish with this many ingredients. Vegetables should be relatively simple, but this one is mostly spices, so it's the blend of these spices that's important. So I took the extra time and did it perfectly. When I ate it I couldn't figure out how it was so hot. It tasted like there were five or so chili peppers in it, but there was only one. There was no cayenne powder, no flakes, and no fresh ones, so it took me a long time to come to the conclusion that a hunk of ginger is very spicy indeed.

The most time consuming part of this is actually chopping the ends off the beans. You then need to cut them into half-centimetre pieces. Do this and toss them in a bowl for when you need them. Then move along with your life/recipe.

1 1/2lbs green beans, cut as above
a "thumb-and-a-half"-sized piece of ginger (my words, not Jaffrey's), cut into a few pieces
10 cloves of garlic (so maybe this is kind of labour intensive too, but oh so very good for you. You won't even end up with garlic breath, don't worry)
1 cup water (Jaffrey says 1 1/2 cups but you just boil it away at the end and over-cook the beans in the process. So start with 1 cup and see if you need more)
2 tsp oil
2 tsp cumin seeds (plus 1 tsp roasted, crushed cumin seeds, like the corn and potato recipe)
1 dried red chili (a small one, not a big one like a poblano, a New Mexican, or any of those South American chilies)
2 tsp ground coriander (grind your own fresh if you can)
2 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced (if you don't peel them it hurts the texture but it may also make the flavour more bitter. I'm not 100% sure on that. I didn't care about the texture so I skipped the peeling step. If you want to peel them the simplest way is to stick them in boiling water on the stove for just a few minutes until their skin begins to break, like lacerations. Then remove them with a slotted spoon and plunge them into cold water, or place them in a colander and rinse with cold water until they're cool enough to handle. Do not drain the boiling water! The skins should peel easily through the lacerations. If they don't, stick them back into the boiling water another minute or so. If you drained the water, you're screwed, and have to wait for more water to boil. Waiting for water to boil is a horrible way to spend a life).
1 tsp salt (max)
3 tbsp lemon juice (I think this is too much, but it depends on your lemons, so taste and it and see for your yourself before you add all three tbsps)
freshly ground black pepper (optional)

A lot of Thai recipes call for you to do this to start: put the ginger and garlic in a blender and process to create a paste. Getting the paste out of the blender can be a trial if there's not enough water, so make sure you add 1/2 cup of the water and do it just before you heat the oil in the next step so all the solid parts of the paste don't have a chance to sink to the bottom of the blender and get stuck. Have all your spices and ingredients ready to go.

Here we go!

Put the 2 tsp oil in a big pot over medium heat. When it's hot, tilt the pot to the side so all the oil collects in one spot. Then add the un-roasted cumin seeds only to the collection of oil. Count to 5 and put in the chilies. You need the pot to be directly on the heat, so you can tilt the pot back down, or even place it back directly on the burner, but use your spatula to keep all the oil and spices together. The spices need the oil to cook but this way you can save yourself about 2 tbsp worth of oil in the dish since you don't need to coat the whole pan to cook the spices.

Now add the crush chili pepper, count to 6, and put in the ginger-garlic paste. Stir and cook about a minute. Keep stirring so the paste doesn't burn since you skimped on oil.

Add the coriander, count to 7, and add the chopped tomatoes. Stir and cook for 2 minutes and mash the tomato against the side of the dish. Some thai dishes add the tomato to the garlic-ginger paste, and since you're mashing the tomato now I might try this next time. I don't see an advantage to not cooking the tomato a few minutes extra from putting it in earlier. They don't get quite as mashed this way compared with purée-ing, so there's a different texture, but purée-ing might be interesting and less soupy, both of which are good things).
Now add the beans, salt and remaining 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a simmer, cover, and reduce heat to medium-low for about 8 minutes. The beans should be almost tender.

Remove the lid and boil away any excess liquid. Rejoice.