Northeast Indian

Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew)

Name: Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew)
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Northeast Indian
Ingredients: 3 cups spinach; 1 cup green beans; 1 potato; 1 tsp mustard oil; 1 green chili; 2.5 cups water; 1/2 tsp salt

Bandana Gogoi @bandana_ghy

Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew) is Northeast Indian home cooking, eaten at lunch and dinner. On the plate it is the dish at the centre and the soup. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.

30 min Medium Heart healthy Diabetic friendly Low sodium Vegetarian Vegan Halal Gluten free Dairy free Pescatarian

Ingredients

Serves

The quantities follow this count.

3 cups spinach
1 cup green beans
1 potato
1 tsp mustard oil
1 green chili
2.5 cups water
1/2 tsp salt

How to cook it

Cut the potato into small cubes and trim the green beans.
Bring the water to a boil in a pot and add the potato and beans, simmering until nearly tender, about 10 minutes.
Add the spinach and slit green chili and cook a few minutes more until the greens wilt down.
Stir in the mustard oil, just a teaspoon, and the salt right at the end rather than cooking it in.
Serve hot with rice as a full, simple one-pot meal; this base vegetable version is the everyday foundation of Mizo home cooking.

Watch how to cook Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew)

Someone making it start to finish, so you can see what the steps look like.

Serve it with

A Northeast Indian dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew), read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.

The cooked vegetable
- Akhuni Yam (Fermented Soybean with Yam and Mustard Greens)
  
  25 min
The protein alongside
- Lauki Chana Dal (Bottle Gourd and Lentils)
  
  45 min
What it is eaten with
- Galho (One Pot Rice, Greens and Chicken Porridge)
  
  40 min

A course labelled with another kitchen's name comes from a cuisine in the same family, which is where this plate usually borrows it from.

Safe at your table

Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand. Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew) carries none of them. That is a checked answer rather than an ingredient list nobody read.

Every tracked allergen in Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew)
Allergen	In this dish
Peanuts	No
Tree nuts	No
Dairy	No
Gluten	No
Shellfish	No
Eggs	No
Soy	No
Fish	No
Sesame	No
Coconut	No

These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.

What it brings to the plate

Estimated, per serving

Calories: 80 kcal
Protein: 3 g
Carbs: 16 g
Fat: 1 g
Fiber: 3 g
Sugar: 3 g
Sodium: 220 mg
Saturated fat: 0 g

Estimated values. Actual nutrition varies with ingredients, brands, and how you cook.

When to cook it

Bai (Boiled Vegetable & Bean Stew) takes about 30 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is a fair bit of work. It is eaten at lunch and dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.