Black-eyed beans
Also called: black-eyed peas, cowpeas, haricots à œil noir, cornille, koki beans, Vigna unguiculata
Black-eyed beans are small, cream-coloured dried beans with a distinctive black spot. They taste mild and slightly earthy, and they cook faster than most dried beans.
In Cameroon they are best known for koki. The beans are soaked, skinned, ground to a smooth paste, mixed with red palm oil and salt, then wrapped in banana leaves and steamed for a long time. They are also cooked whole in sauces. Lumo has one recipe that uses them: koki.
Choose whole, clean beans with no holes or powdery dust, which point to insects. Pick them over and rinse them. For koki, soak them for a few hours, then rub them between your hands under water. The skins float to the top and pour off with the water. Repeat until the beans are white. Store dried beans in an airtight jar somewhere cool and dry. Outside Cameroon they are easy to find in supermarkets as black-eyed peas or cowpeas, and in every African grocer. It is the same bean, so there is nothing to substitute.
Recipes with this ingredient
- Koki Littoral · 2 hr
A steamed bean cake: peeled black-eyed peas blended with red palm oil, wrapped in leaves and steamed until set.