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Peter Kuruvita: Snake bean curry

Peter Kuruvita: Snake bean curry

This is such a tasty curry and, as far as I am concerned, the best way to deal with the unusual flavour of snake beans. When selecting snake beans, choose ones that are nice and stiff with the seeds tightly held in the skin. You should also look for a lovely purple tip on the ends of the beans.

Peter Kuruvita: Snake bean curry

Serves 6
Cooking Time Prep time 10 mins, cook 8 mins
350 gm   snake beans, washed and cut into 5cm lengths
1   onion, finely chopped
10   fresh curry leaves
2   small green chillies, finely chopped
1 tsp each   dried chilli flakes and ground cumin
½ tsp each   of fenugreek seeds and fennel seeds
¼ tsp   ground turmeric
50 ml   vegetable oil
125 ml   (½ cup) coconut cream


1 Toss beans in a bowl with all ingredients except oil and coconut cream.
2 Heat oil in a frying pan over high heat until just beginning to smoke. Add bean mixture and stir for 5 minutes, then add coconut cream, reduce the heat to low and simmer until the cream has reduced by half. Remove from heat and season to taste with salt.

Note This recipe is from Serendip: My Sri Lankan Kitchen by Peter Kuruvita (Murdoch Books, $59.95, hbk). In editing these recipes for publication, we have made minor changes to bring them into Gourmet Traveller style.

RECIPE Peter Kuruvita PHOTOGRAPHY Alan Benson STYLING Michelle Noerianto


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