.png)
Butter Beans with Roasted Red Pepper and Gremolata
I love the creaminess of the butter beans combined with the sweet bitterness of the roast peppers and the freshness of the gremolata. It's brilliant in a meze or antipasto, or as a plant-based main. And downsizing-wise, butter beans are an excellent alternative to potatoes – a lot less carb and three times more fibre and protein. Also delicious.
If you have time, cook them from scratch – the whole spices give them fantastic flavour-bombs; otherwise, open a tin. If you haven't got butter beans, use cannellini – or whatever you have knocking around in your store cupboard.
If using a tin, the cook time is 40 minutes.
- 200g dried butterbeans – or 2 tins
- A teaspoon each of peppercorns, coriander and cardamom seeds
- 3 roasted red peppers
- Gremolata
- Balsamic vinegar
- 4 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic
For the gremolata
- A handful of parsley
- The peel of one lemon
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 – 2 teaspoons olive oil
- Salt
For the butterbeans
- Soak them overnight with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.
- Boil them with the whole spices. Add a teaspoon of salt at the end.
- Drain and leave to cool.
For the roasted peppers
- Pre-heat the oven to 200º / fan 180º / gas mark 6
- Deseed the red peppers and cut them lengthways into 6 pieces.
- Put them into a bowl and add a good pinch of salt and 2 teaspoons of olive oil.
- Mix it well with your hands – this way a very little oil can completely coat them, and the salt starts to draw out the juice, ready for caramelising during the roasting.
- Put them on a baking tray large enough for them to have plenty of room to lie flat, and roast them for about 40 minutes, turning them from time to time. Put in a bowl, drizzle over some balsamic vinegar, add extra salt if necessary, and allow to cool.
For the gremolata
- Peel the lemon with a potato peeler.
- Crush a clove of garlic and wash the parsley.
- Put the strips of lemon peel and crushed garlic on top of the parsley, and finely chop.
- Add the salt and olive oil, and mix well.
Putting it all together
Put everything in a bowl and mix really well. Play with the balsamic, salt, and oil until it tastes really good
Diva notes.
Cooking Peppers
Peppers need to be either raw or really well done – and cooked long enough for their juices to begin to caramelise. Anything in between is insipid and unpleasant.
So far, my MP has ignored my suggestion to make serving half-cooked peppers a criminal offence.
They do not want to be burnt and crispy either.
The peppers that is; not those responsible for half-baking them.
But do not despair: people all over the world cook them every day and it’s really quite easy.
Precisely how long they take will depend on the peppers and your oven, so check them after about 20 minutes – turning them over if they have browned a bit – and then check on them every 10 minutes or so (more often when they are nearly done), turning them when needed. When they are glistening and streaked with brown, and looking limp and on the verge of crinkly, take them out, put them in a bowl, and drizzle a teaspoon or two of balsamic vinegar over them. And take a moment to admire your culinary brilliance.
And on the subject of red peppers:
Do not substitute green peppers; they are an abomination foisted on humanity by an uncaring world. Have nothing to do with them unless they are the small Tuscan friggitelli peppers. Although in this case, have nothing to do with them either: they wouldn’t work as well, are not readily available in Britain, and are not quite worth flying to Italy for if you are not already there.
No time for a recipe?
Keep the butter beans simple: Finely chop a sprig of rosemary, crush 3 cloves of garlic, and gently sauté them in 4 teaspoons of olive oil. Don't brown the garlic or it will be bitter. Season the butter beans really well with salt and pepper, and pour the rosemary-garlic oil over the beans and mix really well.
Sign up for new recipes, tips, and downsizing stories.
