Lekker Brekker Monday: Spicy beans and chickpeas bowl

But wait, there’s more: the beans and their buddies in the pan are spiced with ground cumin, there’s tomato in there too, and it’s all finished with some lime zest and a few squeezes of the zing of fresh lime juice. Everything except the eggs is cooked in one pan, and the prep for this dish doesn’t take long at all.

It’s a good way to use up those leftover bits and pieces in the crisper: that solitary tomato, that mielie, that green pepper you haven’t been sure what to do with. And always keep a few cans of chickpeas and beans (red kidney, black, speckled etc) on the pantry shelf for that morning when you wake up and feel like something substantial for brekker.

Don’t feel you have to use red kidney beans, I would have used black but these were the ones I had.

(Serves 2 or 3)

Ingredients

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 medium red onion, chopped

1 green (or red) pepper, veins and core removed, and diced

1 medium fresh tomato, diced

The kernels of 1 corn on the cob/mielie

1 x 400g can of red kidney beans (or other canned beans)

1 x 400 g can of chickpeas and their brine (aquafaba)

1 scant tsp ground cumin

Juice and finely grated zest of 1 lime

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 fried egg per serving (okay, 2 if you like)

Butter for frying the eggs

Coriander leaves for garnish

Method

Peel and chop the onion, prepare and dice the green pepper, dehusk the mielie, getting rid of the silks too, and slice off the kernels.

Heat the oil in a deep, heavy pan and add the onion. Simmer, stirring, for a few minutes, then add the diced pepper and corn kernels and continue cooking, stirring now and then. Season with the cumin, salt and pepper.

Add the diced tomato, the beans (drained) and the chickpeas, with their brine, stir well and cook at a simmer for about 5 minutes for the kernels to tenderise.

Finally, add the zest and squeeze in the lime juice, stirring again.

Fry the eggs in butter and serve an egg atop a pile of the beans and chickpeas stew in a breakfast bowl, garnished with coriander. DM

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed in my favourite breakfast bowl by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.