Growing bora has been one of the many highlights of this summer’s gardening adventure. It’s deeply satisfying to grow something so definitively Guyanese hundreds of miles away from home and to prepare a meal with it that your family can’t get enough of. This is bliss.

In this post I give you three ways to prepare bora that are foundational to enjoying this bean all year long.

Interestingly enough, I did not grow bora in Guyana so the growing process has been a wonderful journey of discovery. However, as a child of about 10 years old in Guyana, I had the important job of shopping for fruit and vegetables in the market. It was even before that – accompanying my mom or aunts to the market that I learned how to choose the finest, freshest bora. I will share my mom’s tips for buying bora with you.

Bora is known in Asian communities and is called “long bean“, “Chinese long bean” and “yard long bean“, I am told.

Cooking Bora

Everyone in my family LOVES bora and it goes well with many kinds of meat and seafood. How I prepare bora depends on the meat or seafood with which it is prepared. Growing up in Guyana, my family cooked a lot of dishes that followed this formula: a vegetable cooked with a meat in the same pot, and served with rice or roti. Fried ripe plantains often accompany bora with rice as you can see in one of my pictures above. Some Guyanese even add curry powder to the accompanying meat when cooking bora.

Bora is a staple vegetable in Guyana. My mom, grandma and aunts cooked bora with “fine shrimps” (these really tiny shrimp); bora with prawns, bora with fried fish, chicken, beef, ‘mince’ (ground beef) and pork. I have cooked bora with prawns, ground beef, ground lamb and a combination of ground beef and italian sweet and hot sausage.

In addition, bora is a favorite addition to fried rice and chowmein with its delicious raw or lightly steamed flavor and delicate crunch.

In this blog post I will share with you two ways of cooking bora: with jumbo shrimp and with ground beef/ground lamb. The main difference is that shrimp cook really quickly so the bora is cooked first and the shrimp is added in the last 5 minutes of cooking. With meat, the meat is cooked first and the bora and other ingredients are added after the meat is well cooked.

Bora Basics: Buying and Storing

• Where to Buy: Bora can be bought at West Indian markets and in Chinatown. A friend also sent me a photo of bora at a farmers market in Philadelphia and one of my Vietnamese friends told me that she was used to the bean from back home. I am sure that when my friends and subscribers try this bean you will all be hooked like we are in my family.

• Choosing and Storing: If I am buying bora (not growing it), I make sure to check that the beans are dark green with no brown splotches and no yellowing. I also try to cook it within a day or two as it does not keep well even when refrigerated. The beans in the picture above are a bit more coarse than the ideal bora for my mother and me. In my eyes the beans above look like they remained on the vine a bit too long.

Bora Basics: Preparing

• Wash the bora thoroughly and remove the tops and tails.
• STEWS: Cut the bora up into 1cm pieces. Set aside.
• CHOWMEIN AND FRIED RICE: This is best done with very fine, dark green bora, cut into pieces that are about 1/3 of a centimeter in length. Set aside.

Bora Basics: What to Have on Hand for Any Bora Recipe

Bora Recipes: Vegan/Vegetarian

I owe thanks to my dear friend Amy who appears in this blog post wearing the “bora earrings”, for unknowingly nudging me towards this vegetarian recipe. Amy is a vegetarian and really wanted to try bora so I gathered a week’s worth of harvest and tried out this recipe. It was a hit. The flavor of bora is delicate and unique. The herbs, tomatoes and coconut milk are the supporting cast that give the bora a stage on which to shine.

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Bora Recipes: Shrimp

Use the ingredients and method above then follow the steps below:

1. Get 6-8 jumbo shrimp. Prepare and marinate the shrimp ahead of time with lemon, Herb Blend and salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Just when you think the bora is almost done, add the shrimp. Stir, cover and cook for 3-4 minutes.
3. Turn off the flame and let stand covered for 5-7 minutes.
4. Stir to combine flavors and serve with steaming jasmine rice.

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Bora Recipes: With Ground Beef and Sausage

CHEF’S NOTES

• The biggest difference in using meat and poultry with bora is that your meats should be fully cooked and tender before adding the bora – as the bora cooks fairly quickly.
• Ground beef can be used on its own without sausage.
• For variation I sometimes use Andouille sausage instead of italian sweet and hot sausages.
• Ground lamb is a very nice alternative. If using lamb twist it up with few pinches of cinnamon or a cinnamon stick when sauteing for hints of the middle east.
• All meat, poultry and seafood should be marinated with one of my Herb Blends at least one hour and up to a few days before cooking for maximum flavor.