Full of Beans – Walnut & Parsley Pesto & ‘Fasole Verde’ pasta, Salade Nicoise

Fasole Verde, Haricots Verts, String Beans or “French Beans”, whichever name is used, are sweet and delicious. I wasn’t ever very keen on harvesting or doing much at all in the heyday of my Mum’s happy hippy 1970s garden but I did like picking the “French Beans” and then helping cook them and eating them with some melted butter, or (my favorite) slightly warm with vinaigrette.

Fast forward to Piata Matache and the mountains of green and yellow beans on offer now. Green Beans as well as being delicious and versatile come with an array of health benefits so eating them chalks up a number of “good eating” brownie points. Lots of vitamin C and various B vitamins make the humble bean a strong immune system booster. The legume is high in fiber too and low in carbs and adorned with a vitamin E rich tahini or walnut sauce preferably with generous amounts of garlic involved packs a mean antioxidant punch, so chuck away the echinacea and tuck into beans instead!

First stop to enhance the bean experience this week was to make a “Walnut and Parsley Pesto”. I first encountered this simple but sensational pesto on the Turkish Aegean where the local olive oil is prized. Note: for a more walnutty flavor use walnut oil 1/3 to olive oil 2/3. Take blitzing equipment of choice and throw in one bulb of garlic ( yes one whole bulb of raw garlic and forget your neighbors and colleagues…think of your fast reducing cholesterol level or make them eat it too ) , two bunches of parsley, two full handfuls of walnuts, 100g-ish of parmesan or aged pecorino, a little chilli, the zest of half a lemon and enough olive oil to make it bind into a loose paste (probably more than would initially be thought), some salt and pepper to taste. Whizz it all up and hey presto,  pesto fit for kings. This quantity makes two smallish jars. One jar will coat enough pasta for 4.

Walnut and Parsley Pesto & “Fasole” pasta

For four:

Boil 500g of topped and tailed green and yellow beans and leave to cool. Chop roughly.

Boil pasta according to instructions and personal taste

Add the Walnut and Parsley pesto to the cooked pasta and mix through. Add the beans gently and stir through

Serve with parmesan and a glass of something (or somebody) that copes with the garlic. Richard Fox recommends either the Prince Stirbey Tamaioasa Romaneasca Sec 2011 or the Davino Ceptura Rose 2011.

Salade Nicoise

Give this a local twist by using the yellow beans as well as the classic green ones and quail eggs (“oua de prepelita”) that are widely available for a touch of sophistication. Boil the beans until cooked (personally I don’t like them too crunchy as they verge on the raw and indigestible but soggy beans should be avoided at all costs too…keep an eye on them as they cook and keep tasting them for ‘done-ness’, boil the eggs and leave both to cool although the charm of this salad is eating it slightly warm and thus releasing all the volatile oils in olive oil for that olfactory hit. Mix the beans and hard boiled eggs with: Red onions, black olives, anchovies, artichoke hearts or boiled very new potatoes. Top with chunks of tuna and dress with either the best olive oil available and a little balsamic vinegar or a good vinaigrette.

Beans with Tahini Dressing & Walnuts

Another variation on the green bean/walnut and garlic theme, only this time with a Middle Eastern slant. First make a tahini based dressing. This is a Middle Eastern staple and can be varied depending on the salad or vegetable being dressed. I find it easiest to mix in a plastic bottle that acts like a cocktail shaker – a small plastic mineral water bottle is ideal. Drop into the bottle 2 generous tablespoons of tahini paste. Add smashed raw garlic (two cloves is sufficient but four would be more adventurous) and some lemon zest and/or honey. Mint can be added, although I prefer to dot fresh mint leaves through the salad. Add the juice of one lemon and 50ml water. Give a strong shake until the sauce has the consistency of runny honey.

Toast 100g walnuts in an oven at 180C for eight minutes until they release their aroma. Boil 500g of the green beans and let cool until “just warm”. Stir the walnuts through the beans. Add mint leaves to taste and drizzle the tahini dressing over the salad. Serve with warm flatbread.

Romanian Blueberry Mojito Sorbet

A big fat cocktaily alcohol laced sorbet – when the mercury hits 38 this is just what the doctor ordered! Fresh mint, blueberries, lime and Rum in one nifty package. The alcohol probably undoes the healthy fructose hit, but anyhow it still scores on the ‘refreshment’ scale. If it melts faster than you can eat it, don’t worry… drink it up.

To get a decent sorbet it is best to make a proper syrup. This is not difficult, and I give both the fructose and the sugar recipe here. Fructose is now pretty widely available in Romania –I use the ‘Slu’ brand. So get yourself to the nearest market and scoop up the berries while they are at their best and whiz this one up up fast!

Ingredients

60ml fresh lime juice and zest (approx 2 limes)

90 ml water

150 g sugar or 100 g fructose

a handful of mint leaves (washed) approx 15 g)

500g fresh blueberries

30ml white or light rum

Step One: make the syrup

Remember to cool this down after making it. I once (probably quality checking the Rum) poured hot syrup over my fruit, resulting in a slightly ‘cooked’ flavor, which is not what you want.

Combine lime juice, water, and sugar in a small saucepan and heat over a medium flame.  Stir frequently until sugar is dissolved. Leave to cool until a finger can be comfortably in the mixture for about 20-30 seconds.

Step Two: Blitz everything together

Place blueberries, mint, the syrup and lime zest in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Pulse until combined.  Add rum and pulse.  I quite like to see pieces of fruit so I give it a rough pulse. If you prefer a more “baby food” pure texture then pulse until you are happy.

Step Three: Freeze and churn

For the gadgetistas, switch your ice cream machine on to cool down at least 20 minutes beforehand. Pour the gloopy fruit and syrup mixture into the machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions (I churn mine for approx 1 hour). Turn into a plastic container and cover with some greaseproof paper before putting on the lid (prevents frost damage and large ice crystals forming on the surface).

No ice cream machine – pour the gloop into a fairly shallow container and freeze until the middle is just solid (approx 1 hour). With a fork break up and smush the semi solid ice cream and re-freeze. You can repeat this process but life is short and this sorbet is usually fine with just one forking over.

Fasole Batuta five winsome ways…

….with Tahini and Dukkah, with Pesto, with Red Onion Marmalade, with Rosemary & Lemon and as healthy mash!

Fascinated with Hummus? Titivated by Ful Medames? Enraptured by re-fried Pinto Beans? This troupe of pastes have long hogged the leguminous paste limelight but it’s time white bean puree or “fasole batuta” took center stage and showed us just how posh it can be.

I love the traditional FB with tons of sweet caramelized onions on top as much as anybody, but the adaptable paste can offer so much more. It makes a great dip, a fabulous canapé spread on crostini or a healthy alternative to mashed potato, as seen in the world’s most cutting edge restaurants, partnering seared tuna, roast trout or lamb chops with panache. It’s high in protein and fiber, magnesium and essential B vits, so waste no time and embrace the smarter paste!

Gadgets & Gizmos

A blender – either a stick one or a food processor. If you like a chunky consistency and manual labor then a potato masher can be used.

Timeline & Planning

The best method is to soak the beans overnight with some bicarbonate of soda. The beans swell up and absorb the water and the bicarb softens the skins aiding the digestion process. However cooking from “dry” wont be a disaster it will just take longer and use more of the world’s shrinking energy resources cooking them.

Ingredients for basic white bean paste or “fasole batuta”

  • 500g white beans (“phaesolus vulgaris”) aka cannelini beans in Italy, Navy Beans in the US and “fasole” in Romania. Check over carefully for stones, straw and extra wildlife, especially if you are a vegetarian.
  • 2tsp of bicarbonate of soda
  • Water to generously cover the beans (probably 5cm over the beans in a saucepan)
  • Sunflower or olive oil
  • 2-6 cloves of garlic according to personal taste
  • salt

How To

Rinse the soaked beans to eliminate the salty bicarb flavor. Add fresh water and bring to the boil. Add the salt. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until the beans are very soft and “mushy”. Add the oil (personal taste – add more oil, no oil and use some of the cooking liquid, add lemon juice) and blend until creamy in texture. For the traditional recipe thinly slice two onions (I like the color contrast of red onions) and fry them in a tiny amount of oil slowly slowly until they change color and are “caramelized” – approx 45 mins on a low heat. I like to serve red onion marmalade as a similar and handy idea.

Ideas and Variations

With Tahini and Dukkah

Adding tahini will thicken any paste (including dressings) as the tahini emulsifies the sauce and thickens it, much as oil added to a mayonnaise base does. So adding tahini and beating vigorously will thicken the texture of the paste. Having almost burnt out many motors on the less forgiving hummus I can say that the fasole batuta version is more forgiving.

To 300g of base fasole batuta add 100ml of tahini and 1 tsp of cumin. You don’t have to add the cumin and you can argue that the spices in the Dukkah make it unnecessary, but I quite like it. Beat or blitz and serve with very good olive oil swirled on top and a liberal sprinkling of Dukkah. Just add some good flatbread.

With Pesto

Drizzle proper home made pesto on top of the basic fasole batuta. Its also interesting to actually mix it in and make a basil flavored paste.

With Rosemary and Lemon

To 300g of basic fasole batuta add the leaves of two sprigs of rosemary and the zest of one lemon (you can add the juice too to the basic mix but take care it doesn’t become too liquid)

As a Mash

Here the texture needs to be slightly more liquid, or akin to smooth and creamy mashed potatoes. Use this mash as per your potato based favorite. It’s quite a neat trick to drizzle some pesto over the mash before topping with your piece of fish, meat or yes, real sausages! Red wine & fennel sausages atop a pesto drizzled fasole mash? YUM central.