This warm cannellini bean salad is of those happy marriages of ingredients that are just meant for each other.
The combination of colours, textures and flavours – floury beans, silky rocket and salty pancetta, loosely bound in a lemony crème fraiche dressing – is a delight. Continue reading
Cauliflower and white bean stew is a one of those no-fuss, mid-week meals I’ve been making for years.
There’s something vaguely Mediterranean about it – Spanish or maybe Greek – which can be played up by adding smoked paprika, or a scattering of crumbled feta. But generally I just make it as below.
It took awhile for the girls to warm to it (courgette has always been a hard sell for some reason), but they eat it happily now. Continue reading
This turkey white bean chilli is a lighter, fresher take on the rich, red chilli con carne I grew up eating – though the chipotle paste ensures it still packs a punch.
Indian beans on toast is the happy result of one of those “what can I possibly make for dinner?” evenings. The kind where you’re that close to admitting defeat and ordering pizza.
But then you notice a couple of tins of cannellini beans you’d bought to have with the chicken breasts you forgot you’d already eaten, and decide that the onion with the shoots emerging from the top is still usable, and remember there are a few slices of sourdough bread in the freezer.
And with the last tin of tomatoes from the garage, you produce something that – while far from dinner party fare – is pretty tasty, if you do say so yourself.
Chicken, cannellini beans and kale is not the catchiest of names – more of a list of ingredients really. Which makes sense for a dish whose elements remain proudly distinct while combining in a deeply satisfying way.
I love the way the word fasoulada rolls off the tongue. I’d order it just for the pleasure of saying “I’ll have the fasssooolaaadaaa please.”
And the girls are just as same. It’s “pass the fasssooolaaadaaa”, “my fasssooolaaadaaa is too hot” and so on throughout the meal.
Now that I’ve overcome a lifelong pressure cooker phobia resulting from the applesauce incident, I prefer cooking dried beans to buying tinned.
It’s more work, but with recipes like tonno e fagioli, the difference in texture and taste is worth the extra effort. Continue reading
Piyaz is a traditional Turkish bean and onion salad, typically garnished with slices of tomato and hardboiled egg. The recipe varies from region to region – in Antalya they add tahini to the dressing, which gives it a pleasing mellowness. Continue reading
Ten More Bites 