Lab lab beans = hyacinth beans
Indian bean Common name: Lablab Bean, Hyacinth bean, Bonavista bean, Egyptian bean. Synonyms: Dolichos lablab, Dolichos purpureus.
Hyacinth bean, or better known as ‘Pang Pei Dau/ 彭皮豆’ in Cantonese, or Avarakkai in Tamil. There are a few varieties of this bean – some have purple edges and others are completely purple in colour.
Young beans are used in curries and stir-fry. However, my family prefer to use it to boil soup.
Other names of Hyacinth Bean
- English name: Hyacinth Bean/ Indian Beans/ Egyptian Kidney Beans
- Scientific name: Lablab purpureus (dolichos lablab)
- Malay name: Kacang Kara/ Kacang Sepat
- Chinese name: Pang Pei Dau/ 彭皮豆
- Tamil: Avarakkai
This is not a very common/commercialised vegetable. You’ll probably never see it in supermarkets
Choosing and handling the beans
Choose beans that are clear, bright, even colour, and uniform in size. It must not be shrivelled.
Older beans are more fibrous, so we remove the tips. We then soak it in water before cooking.
in Bangladesh and West Bengal, the pods and the beans are cooked as vegetables or cooked with fish as a curry. In Vietnam, the beans are used in making chè đậu ván (Hyacinth Bean Sweet Soup) and in Africa it is served to breastfeeding mothers.
According to Wikipedia, this plant is both a medicinal and poisonous plant.
“The fruit and beans are edible if boiled well with several changes of the water. Otherwise, they are toxic due to the presence of cyanogenic glycosides, glycosides that are converted to hydrogen cyanide when consumed.”