23rd March 2009Also knows as winged beans or more prosaically as four angled beans. Its scientific name is Psophocarpus tetragonolobus and also known as kacang botol(some say kacang kelisa) in Malay as well as say lim tau in Cantonese. Its a legume widely planted in many South East Asian countries.
It is acclaimed as a "supermarket on a stalk" thanks to its high nutrient content, combining the benefits of green beans, garden pea, spinach, mushrooms, soy beans, bean sprouts and potatoes. Virtually the entire plant is edible - from flowers and leaves to tuberous roots and seeds.
Winged beans have been grown for generations in Papua New Gunea and South East Asia where they were once considered a "poor man's crop". The plant used to grow primarily in the backyards and was generally ignored; nowadays however, kacang botol is commercially cultivated in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
