Greek Giant Beans
A hearty, warming inexpensive dish, with seasonal vegetables and butter beans. Easy to prepare and perfect for both summer and winter.
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Servings:
Equipment
- 1 casserole with lid
Ingredients
- 500 g butter beans/lima beans white kidney bean/cannellini bean
- 2 onions chopped
- 2 carrots thickly sliced
- 2 Florina peppers roughly or finely chopped use only one if you want fewer vegetables
- 1 long green pepper roughly or finely chopped optional
- 1 fennel bulb thinely sliced swap diced celeriac, optional
- 2-3 cloves grated garlic
- 5 ripe tomatoes (400g), roughly chopped or a tin of good quality plum tomatoes
- 1 sprig fresh oregano or tsp dried
- 2 sticks celery including leaves, roughly chopped
- 1 small bunch dill (finely chopped)
- 2 tbsp chopped parsley, one for the pot and one to serve
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 small orange quarter
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 2-3 black peppercorns
- 1-2 tbsp tomato concentrate
- approx 300 ml the stock of your choice or stock cube or bean cooking liquid see notes
- freshly ground pepper and salt
- olive oil
Instructions
Preparing the Beans
- Soak the beans with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda for 12-24 hours.
- Rinse and boil in plenty of water for about an hour or until al dente. Drain the beans reserving the cooking liquid.
Preparing the vegetables
- While boiling the beans, saute the garlic and vegetables (except the tomatoes) in a little olive oil until 'just' soft. If you have some to hand add a splash of white wine and let it evaporate. As soon as the beans are ready, toss them into the vegetables together with the chopped tomatoes, celery, herbs, cinnamon and black pepper.
- Pour in the bean mixture, and tuck the orange quarter into the beans. Drizzle with a little oil, stir in one tablespoon of tomato paste and add 1½ cups of the cooking liquid.
- Bake in the oven for 1-1½ hours or until the beans are soft and creamy. Regularly check to ensure the beans have not dried out and add more stock or bean water if necessary.
- Towards the end of cooking, check the beans for seasoning. Add a little more tomato paste, salt and pepper if necessary. Remove the orange quarter and cinnamon stick (if you can!).
- Decorate with chopped parsely and serve with a slice of Feta and crusty bread.
Notes
You can use the bean water or homemade stock (stock cube water) as your liquid. Chicken stock gives it a pretty rich flavour and is probably more suitable for the wintertime.
