I was doing this recipe for years before I wrote it up. Everytime I thought about it, I had the same problem. I couldn't think what to call it. I still can't. I've given it a provisional title, but I freely admit, it's a rubbish name for a dish. The problem is, I know what it's called in Arabic, but can't find a good way to spell it in English. The usual way - as was written on the tins I used to by in the supermarket in Al Khafji - is 'foul beans'. Good name for a recipe? I don't think so. It took me ages to get round to buying and trying those particular beans and it was mostly because of the name. The pronunciation is 'fool' by the way. Not much better though - 'Fool beans'? Or how about 'Full beans'? That just doesn't make any sense. See the problem?
I thought of calling them Egyptian beans coz my mate Sayyed said that they were almost the Egyptian national dish, but then the Lebanese are partial to them as well, and so are the Kuwaitis....and I discovered them as a breakfast staple in Saudi Arabia. I wanted to write up a recipe for years; everytime I knocked up a batch of spicy beans, I thought, 'Macbean, this should be in your recipe book.'
I briefly toyed with the notion of writing it up as 'Spicy broad-beans', because that's what foul beans are. I decided against this, however, for two reasons: first, the recipe works with other kinds of beans like pinto beans or kidney beans and, second, the kind of broad beans usually used are the dried and rehydrated brown type, rather than the fresh green kind and using the green kind doesn't really work. So I was almost ready to forget about it. 'If in doubt, leave it out.' as Sayyed used to say. But then I decided the recipe and the final result are much more important than the title - unless maybe you're writing a sort of posey, coffee-table recipe book that's just for reading, which is definitely not what I'm trying to do here, despite the long preambles before most of the recipes.
One day, I saw a shelf full of 'foul medamas' beans in a supermarket in Armenia and it took me back to my days in Saudi. Not just because it was the exact same beans I used to buy (tinned in the United Arab Emirates, by the way, so there's another country that can claim them). The event also made me realise that my experience in Armenia was in many ways like my experience in Saudi. For one, because of the closed borders surrounding Armenia, things turn up sporadically and then disappear for months. It was the same in Saudi. People used to say of the supermarket, 'If they've got it, get it.' And we would buy baked beans by the caseload, knowing that by the morning the shelves would be empty and it would be months before the next lorry load of beans arrived. And then, there's the way people drive. I was reminded of that similarity on the way home from the shop with my bag of tins-o-beans. Generally, a day spent outdoors in Yerevan is a day spent avoiding becoming roadkill, just like in Saudi Arabia, but this day I came closer than usual on two occasions; once when a car mounted the pavement to park, and the second when a car reversed at high speed round a corner onto a main road and over a zebra crossing I was trying to cross on. A really strange thing happened after that, but. A car actually stopped when I was on a crossing and, even stranger, it had diplomatic plates. The plates were not so strange in themselves - seems almost every second car has diplomatic or UN plates in Yerevan. No, the strange thing was that the car stopped, even though it had diplomatic plates. You don't often see that in any country, in my experience. The drivers of such cars usually assume they can do what they like and their passengers are usually too self-important, drunk or stoned to notice. I was swiped on a crossing in Kuwait once by a UN car and the driver didn't even stop to see if I was okay.
Well, enough of me moaning about bad drivers. I did infer above that I hoped people would try out my recipes, which means I should allow you to get there while there's still time to eat. I should just briefly point out that this is the quick foul bean recipe (it's even quicker if you skip reading all the nonsense at the beginning and just get on with it). I'm suggesting tinned beans. Usually - I mean in Arabic restaurants - it's made using dried beans and takes a lot longer. I'll post the recipe for that method when I have time. If you're planning to have this dish on it's own, the ingredients here are enough for two people, or maybe just one if you've just come in from working on a building site. It should be easy enough to scale up accordingly if you're feeding more.
Chop the onion and fry in olive oil until it is beginning to brown. Add garlic, either finely chopped or crushed, and the ground spices. After about 30 seconds, add the tomato, roughly chopped and stir. Cook for a few minutes until the tomato has broken up and then add the beans and cover everything with hot water. Add a little salt and simmer for about 10 minutes.
When the beans are cooked drizzle some olive oil over them and and sprinkle with chopped green coriander. Serve with flat bread- pitta, chappatis, lavash or whatever. If you want to make more of a spread, you could try serving alongside any of the following: hummus, taboule, cous-cous, mutabal, falafal, green salad, cacik or olives.