How to make easy Kacang Pool / Kacang Phool / Malay style Foul Mudammas with baked beans!
Kacang Pool or Kacang Phool is a Malaysian and Singapore Malay dish of stewed spiced beans. It is so quick and easy to prepare, but you will rarely find this being sold at hawker stalls. It is one of those homecooked specialties.
Kacang Pool is made with fava beans. However, it is just not an accessible ingredient here in Singapore. Or at least not in our major supermarkets. So I hacked it one day with baked beans, and it came out amazing! I’m happy to report that I’ve served this to people as well, and nobody could tell that it was not made with fava beans.
This dish is also so quick and easy to prepare, and ultra flavourful. It takes no more than 30 minutes to make this.
What is Kacang Pool?
Kacang Pool or Kacang Phool is the Malay interpretation of Foul Mudammas, a Middle Eastern dish of stewed broad or fava beans. Foul Mudammas is most commonly served as breakfast with some pitas, think hummus, but with fava beans. Kacang Pool however is served as more of a lunch/dinner dish.
‘Kacang Pool’ refers to the fava beans. For reference, Kacang = Nuts and Pool = Foul or Ful.
Compared to the original Middle Eastern version, the Malaysian and Singapore interpretation has a bit more ingredients. Foul Mudammas is simply spiced with cumin, while Kacang Pool has the added spices of fennel and coriander seeds. If you’re familiar with Malay cooking, you know that cumin, fennel and coriander seeds are the trifecta of spices that we love to use.
Another spice added is curry powder – definitely a Malaysian/Singaporean thing! This enhances the flavour, and no – it does not taste like curry at all.
While Foul Mudammas uses olive oil and lemon juice for fat and acid, Kacang Pool opts for ghee or butter, and lime juice. You would notice I added cooking oil with the ghee – I generally do this since ghee can have a rather strong ‘meaty’ taste by itself.
Baked Beans Hack in Kacang Pool
Traditionally, this dish is made with fava beans or broad beans. In Singapore and Malaysia, the dish uses fava beans as well. This can be with canned fava beans, or dried fava beans, though canned versions are preferred for the sake of convenience.
However, fava beans are just not as commonly found here in Singapore, at least not at our major supermarkets!
This is my most favourite hack ever: use baked beans in place of fava beans for Kacang Pool! Yes, the very same Heinz ones that are sold in cans and in a tomato sauce. They work well in place of the fava beans.
In this recipe, I rinsed off the baked beans to remove the tomato sauce flavouring, to stay as close as possible to the original Kacang Pool flavours. I’m actually not a fan of the traditionally tomato-sauced baked beans, so I would advocate this step.
If you enjoy baked beans however, you can in fact use the tomato sauce the beans come in. It will add a lot of additional flavour to the dish. When blending the beans to a paste, simply use the tomato sauce instead of water to help blend the beans easier.
Can I Use Fava Beans for this Recipe?
Fava Beans are also known as broad beans. It is one of the most common ingredient in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine.
If you want to use fava beans in this recipe, you can! Simply replace the baked beans here with fava beans; there is no alteration needed to make this Kacang Pool.
You want to get the canned versions, for the sake of convenience. If you are using dried beans, you will need to prepare and boil the beans until it is cooked before continuing with the recipe.
The Spices for Kacang Pool
To make amazing Kacang Pool, it is all about the spices.
The three must-have spices would be Coriander Seeds, Fennel Seeds and Cumin. If you have ground version you can use that. I have whole spices, so first, I dry toasted the spices over low heat to release the flavours, and ground them to a powder.
Stew it longer so that the spices can fully bloom and develop in flavour. The longer you stew it, the better it tastes! Bean has the tendency to dry out a lot quicker, so you want to keep an eye and not let it stew to dryness. This is a quick dish for me, so I would only stew it for 20 to 30 minutes, or while I prepare the items to serve it with. Add water to rehydrate the Kacang Pool.
Is this Vegetarian?
Not this recipe, but at its core it most definitely is! If you want to keep this vegetarian, don’t add the minced beef. The authentic Kacang Pool does not actually add any meat.
Want a vegan dish? Don’t serve with eggs! The Kacang Pool itself sans minced meat is fully vegan.
Is this Spicy?
This is one of the rare times a Malay recipe is not spicy! I added chilli powder here, but it barely adds any heat. Omit completely if you are feeding particularly sensitive tongues.
That said, if you want to make a spicy version, you can! Add dried chilli paste (of course) to the first sauteeing step of the recipe until it splits oil, and continue with the rest of the steps.
What to Serve this With?
What is served with Kacang Pool is as important as the stew itself! You cannot serve it just as is; it is simply not as satisfying. It needs the strong flavours of raw onions, freshness of the green chillies and cilantro and that final zest of lime. Plus, these helps the look of the Kacang Pool, because let’s be real – brown sludge is not particularly an enticing look.
Eggs are a must; I like a fried egg with a runny yolk for this but you can prepare the eggs anyway you want.
This is commonly served with bread. Bread is the perfect vehicle to sop up all that creamy bean stew! If you want to make your own bread, check out this easy artisanal bread recipe here.
If you want to go the Foul Mudammas route, then make some pita bread! I have a recipe for easy stovetop pitas here.
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Easy Baked Beans ‘Kacang Pool’
2
servings20
minutes20
minutesIngredients
1 can of Baked Beans (425g)
100g Minced Beef
1 tbsp Cooking Oil
1 tbsp Ghee or Butter
1 Onion
1 tsp Garlic
1 tsp Ginger
1 tsp Curry Powder
1 tsp Coriander Seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp Fennel Seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp Cumin Seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp Chilli Powder
Ground Black Pepper
Salt, to taste
- Serve with:
Bread
Raw Onions
Fried Eggs
Green Chillies
Lime
Cilantro
Directions
- Blending Portion
- Drain the baked beans and rinse with water to remove the tomato sauce. Blend the drained baked beans with some water so it turns into a paste.
- Blend the onion, garlic and ginger to form a paste.
- Dry Toasting Spices (if needed)
- Dry toast the cumin, fennel and coriander seeds over low heat until fragrant. Grind to a fine powder.
- Making the Kacang Pool
- In a pan, add oil and ghee or butter. Allow the ghee to completely melt with the oil, before adding the onion, garlic and ginger paste. Stir fry until fragrant.
- Once fragrant, add cumin, fennel, coriander seeds, curry powder and chilli powder. Stir till incorporated. Once fragrant, add the minced beef.
- Stir fry until the beef cooks, and add the pureed baked beans. Stir the baked beans to combine with the spices. Add water if it is too thick. Stir and allow to come to a boil. Option to allow it to stew for 20 to 30 minutes for flavours to fully develop and infuse.
- Add black pepper. Give a taste test, as baked beans are typically already salted. Add salt as needed.
- Serve with bread, fried eggs, chopped raw onions, green chillies, cilantro, and a squeeze of lime!
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