Tamarind Black Bean Curry with Chilli & Peanuts

You’ve probably eaten tamarind a hundred times and never known it - it’s in Worcestershire sauce, it’s in HP Sauce, it’s the thing giving your Friday-night brown sauce that sharp, sour kick. I first tried it properly fresh, travelling in Asia - knobbly brown pods, split open to this sticky, sour pulp inside, completely different to the jar you buy from the supermarket. It’s got a genuinely unique sour-sweet flavour that nothing else quite replicates. It works brilliantly here with black beans. Onions cooked low and slow, garlic, ginger, chilli and cumin, then tomato, tamarind and black beans simmered down until thick, glossy, and clinging to every bean. Crushing a few of the beans against the side of the pan as it cooks gives the sauce extra body - most stay whole, a few break down, and the whole thing gets richer for it. Finished properly loaded - spring onions, coriander, crushed roasted peanuts, a good squeeze of lime. Serve with rice or warm flatbreads and let people pile it on themselves. This is my saucy beans series - a tin of beans, treated properly, can be the best thing you eat all week. Finished properly loaded - spring onions, coriander, crushed roasted peanuts, a good squeeze of lime. Serve with rice or warm flatbreads and let people pile it on themselves.