Grah is a traditional Bosnian dish and the recipe varies through each family. It is one of those tasty, warm dishes where you can add your special little touch to make it just perfect. For the last two weeks, my mother has been back in her homeland so I have been missing on those delicious Bosnian dishes. I have been on a venture to learn to cook, many new dishes for the first time in my life.
Today I decided to cook Grah.
Growing up, I loved Grah. I used to eat it for every meal when my mother would cook it. It is one of those dishes where you just have a full meal, dip in some bread, have a side of onions or chili's and it is something you will get addicted to. So let me take you through my first time in cooking it, and I will explain some of the problems I had with the recipes I found and followed online!
Firstly I will list the things you will need, which is not much at all!
- Packet of beans (or you can settle for canned)
- 1-2L of water
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 capsicum
- 1TBS tomato sauce/paste
- 1TBS paprika
- 1TSPN Salt
- 1 TSP Vegeta
- 1 TSP pepper
- 2 TBS oil
- 2 TBS flour
- 3 cloves garlic
The first thing I did was soak the beans in water overnight although it can be just for a couple of hours. After you soak them, you will need to boil them in water for a couple minutes. After they have boiled, empty the water and refill it with fresh water and put it back to boil.
The next thing you will need to do is chop up the carrot, capsicum and onion and then add them to the beans and water. You should let this cook for a while but not too long. The recipe I had followed said to cook these together for 1 hour before adding the spices, however, waiting an hour is not the best as the beans will become very soft and mushy by the time you need to boil the spices in.
So, I would recommend adding spices after 30 minutes!
After 30 minutes, add the salt, vegeta, pepper and tomato sauce or paste. Let it boil away while you prepare the garlic!
Chop the garlic in very small pieces and fry it gently in a pan. Other recipes say to add the flour and paprika in and mix it, however, when I did this it just turned into a thick and sticky paste and when I added it into the bean pot, I ended up with clumps of flour floating around!
Instead, I would recommend adding the fried garlic into the bean pot, and then slowly adding some flour and paprika.
After this, you can add any of the leftover ingredient into the pot and cook it until the beans are soft!
To make sure the Grah is just perfect, get a spoon and have a taste! If needed, add some more salt, or spices to make it just perfect.
If your Grah has been cooking for a long time and you've added all your ingredients, you can add some butter! Along with this, mix up a little cornflour with some cold water and add it into your Grah. This will work wonders (it did for me!).
Enjoy!!!
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