Across the highlands · 30 min · Vegan · Side dish · For beginners
Kinema
In German: Fermentierte Sojabohnen
For 4 servings · US units
Fermented soybeans with onion, chilli and tomato — bold alongside rice
Kinema is a Nepali dish of fermented soybeans, and everything it tastes of comes from that fermentation: savoury, deep, unmistakable. As it hits the hot pan the smell gets a good deal stronger before it settles again, and what you're left with is a thick, well-seasoned gravy. It goes on the table as a side to plain boiled rice, which turns one small bowl into a proper meal.
Ingredients
- 7¾ ozfresh or dried; soak dried for 10–15 min in warm water, rinse store-bought wellCooked soybeans from the eastern Himalaya, fermented somewhere warm for a few days until sticky and stringy. Pungent, savoury and distinctly ammoniac.Substitute: Natto, sold frozen in Asian grocery shops, is the closest substitute, since it is made with the same species of bacteria and is just as sticky and stringy. It is milder and slimier than kinema, though; frying it hard or mashing it slightly brings it closer. Soybean pastes such as miso are not a substitute, as they lack the whole-bean texture and the characteristic smell.Read more
- 4 ozOnionfinely chopped or thinly sliced
- 2 tbspOilvegetable oil for frying, mustard oil for the salad
- 3Chiligreen, slit lengthwise; alternatively 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 1 tspSaltto taste, the kinema is already salty
- 4¼ ozTomatochopped, cooks down into the sauce (optional)
- 1 tspTurmericground, colours the oil (optional)
- ½ cupWaterfor deglazing, reduces to a thick gravy
- 1 tspGingerfinely grated, for the cold version (optional)
- 5¼ ozCucumbercut into bite-sized pieces, for the salad version (optional)
- 2 tbspcorianderfreshly chopped (optional)
- 1 tbspLemon juicefreshly squeezed, acidifies the salad (optional)
- 1 tspCuminground (optional)
- 1⅛ lbdried, only if fermenting the beans yourself (optional)Caution: Raw soybeans are indigestible and must be thoroughly cooked or roasted all the way through before eating.Dried yellow soybeans, round and hard; nutty and crunchy when roasted, firm and mild when cooked.Substitute: Roasted peanuts come closest to the crunchy, nutty character of roasted soybeans, though they taste sweeter and richer. In cooked dishes chickpeas work, becoming softer and tasting less beany.Read more
Method
- Prepare the kinemaSoak dried kinema in warm water for 10–15 minutes, then drain it well. If you're using ready-made fermented beans, rinse them under cold water instead.
- Prep the vegetablesFinely chop or thinly slice the red onion, slit the green chillies lengthways and chop the tomato.
- Fry the onionHeat the oil in a frying pan and cook the onion for 3–4 minutes, until golden.
- Cook down tomato and turmericAdd the tomato and turmeric and stir for about 2 minutes, until the tomato breaks down and the oil takes on colour.
- Fry the beansStir in the beans along with the chilli and salt, and fry for 3–5 minutes in the spiced oil. Go easy on the salt — the kinema is already salty.
- Deglaze and reducePour in the water, scrape the browned bits off the base of the pan and let it bubble away uncovered for 5–7 minutes, until you have a thick sauce.
- Serve with riceServe hot with boiled rice.
Tips and variations
Kinema is also good cold, as a salad: toss the rinsed beans with onion, cucumber, grated ginger, coriander leaves, lemon juice, cumin and chilli flakes, drizzle with mustard oil and leave it to sit for 10 minutes. Ready-fermented soybeans are sold in Asian grocers, either fresh or sun-dried; Japanese nattō is the closest substitute. If you'd like to ferment your own, cook soaked soybeans until soft, mash them and set them up with salt and sauerkraut juice — or with a little doenjang or miso as a starter culture — keep the paste somewhere warm, stir it regularly and let it ferment for several weeks. That bean paste also works as a spread or a seasoning paste; mixed with wheat flour and a koji starter and left to ferment for months, it becomes soy sauce.
Allergens
Contains: Soybeans
These notes follow from this recipe's ingredient list. Ready-made products and brands may contain further allergens — please check the packaging yourself.
Something not right?
This recipe was put together from independent sources and checked before publishing. Even so, a mistake can slip through — an amount that does not add up, a step that does not work as written. If you spot something, write to us: we will look into it and put it right.
