Batar Daan

Timor-Leste's one-pot staple, maize simmered slowly with mung beans and pumpkin until everything collapses together into a thick savoury porridge

Origin: Timor-Leste

From the journey of Corn.

Batar daan is the everyday food of Timor-Leste and it is one of the clearest examples anywhere of a dish built entirely from what a subsistence garden produces at the same time. Dried maize kernels, mung beans, and pumpkin are simmered together for a long time in one pot until the maize softens, the beans break down, and the pumpkin dissolves into the liquid to thicken it. Nothing is added but salt, onion, and whatever green leaf is to hand. Maize came to Timor with the Portuguese, who held the eastern half of the island for four and a half centuries, and it displaced older staples so thoroughly that Timorese food is now more maize-centred than that of the Indonesian islands immediately to the west. The mung beans and the pumpkin were already there. The technique matters more than the ingredient list. Whole dried maize needs hours, and Timorese cooks soak it overnight and then simmer it with the beans from cold, so that everything arrives at collapse together. Rushed, it gives hard kernels in a thin soup; done properly it turns creamy without any dairy or fat at all.

Ingredients

Base

300 g dried whole maize kernels (hominy type), soaked overnight
200 g dried mung beans
500 g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
2 litres water

Aromatics

1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed

Greens

150 g pumpkin leaves or spinach, shredded

Fat

2 tbsp coconut oil or neutral oil

Seasoning

1.5 tsp fine salt
1 green chilli, sliced, optional

Method

Drain the soaked maize and put it in a large pan with the mung beans and the water. Bring to the boil, skim, then reduce to a steady simmer.
Simmer, half covered, for an hour and a quarter, topping up with hot water as needed, until the maize kernels are tender and beginning to split.
Soften the onion and garlic in the oil in a separate pan, then stir them into the pot.
Add the cubed pumpkin and cook for a further thirty to forty minutes, until it has completely disintegrated into the liquid.
Stir in the shredded greens and the chilli, season with salt, and cook for a final ten minutes.
Serve thick, in bowls, on its own or beside grilled fish.

Notes

Tinned hominy or dried nixtamalised maize both work and remove the overnight soak and most of the cooking time. Ordinary sweetcorn will not do. This needs the mature dried kernel, which behaves like a pulse rather than a vegetable. The dish is often described as the Timorese national staple, and versions vary by what the garden holds; cassava and green banana both appear.

The Gastrographer

Name: Batar Daan
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 2 h
Total time: 2 h 15 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Timor-Leste
Ingredients: 300 g dried whole maize kernels (hominy type), soaked overnight; 200 g dried mung beans; 500 g pumpkin, peeled and cubed; 2 litres water; 1 large onion, chopped; 4 cloves garlic, crushed; 150 g pumpkin leaves or spinach, shredded; 2 tbsp coconut oil or neutral oil; 1.5 tsp fine salt; 1 green chilli, sliced, optional

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control