Do you ever get that feeling where you've made a mistake but in doing so you become convinced you've made a significant discovery - only to find thousands have been there before you: I imagine Edmund Hillary would have hit a trough pretty quickly if he'd reached the peak of Everest, to be confronted by a row of sun-loungers draped with German towels. You get the picture?
This excursion started because of baked beans - they've rocketed in price (well, the ones I buy have!) so I got it into my head a while ago to make my own. Unfortunately neither my local Co-op nor Asda stock dried haricot beans, so I went to Tesco for a change. They don't stock them either, but did give me the head office phone number to find out why not. I bought a pack of cannellini beans instead, thinking I could have jumbo baked beans. Not being as dangerous as raw kidney beans I filled my pressure cooker with water, bunged in the beans and brought it to the boil. First discovery: cannellini beans don't take nearly as long to cook as other pulses like chickpeas or kidney beans. What I ended up with wasn't a mush but the beans were certainly too soft to bake in the home-made tomato sauce I had in mind.
This excursion started because of baked beans - they've rocketed in price (well, the ones I buy have!) so I got it into my head a while ago to make my own. Unfortunately neither my local Co-op nor Asda stock dried haricot beans, so I went to Tesco for a change. They don't stock them either, but did give me the head office phone number to find out why not. I bought a pack of cannellini beans instead, thinking I could have jumbo baked beans. Not being as dangerous as raw kidney beans I filled my pressure cooker with water, bunged in the beans and brought it to the boil. First discovery: cannellini beans don't take nearly as long to cook as other pulses like chickpeas or kidney beans. What I ended up with wasn't a mush but the beans were certainly too soft to bake in the home-made tomato sauce I had in mind.
Inspiration time: adapt my definitive hummus recipe, substituting these for chickpeas. Now, in case you don't know, cannellinni beans are big (popular) in Tuscany so it seemed appropriate to add some Italian seasonings to my "no-name bean dip". I had my usual delusions of grandeur - come up with a snappy monicker and all the supermarkets would be scurrying to bang on my door, clamouring for the recipe. Alas, when I googled "Cannellinni beans" I was gutted to find that plenty of other cooks have had the same idea as me - no-one, however, has yet come up with a name as readily-identifiable as "hummus" (with all its different spellings) is throughout the whole Mediterranean/North African region.
Chiantishire Hummus
Put 500g cooked cannellini beans into a food processor (I found my blender/liquidiser couldn't cope with the mass) and pour in 300ml olive oil. With the motor running add 1 tsp of lemon juice, 3 heaped tsp of minced garlic, 1 heaped tsp of dried oregano and 1 heaped tsp of dried basil. Season with 1 tsp salt and half a tsp of fine pepper. Chill and leave to infuse overnight. As hummus freezes quite adequately, I've portioned mine into plastic bags but as it's so delicious I'm spreading it on everything at the moment!
After making two loads of my "White-bean dip" I still had a load of soft beans. I had been about to batch-produce some Chilli Con Carne but, in the end, adapted my Spicy Mexican Meatball recipe to what I thought would work in Chiantishire. I can't find a recipe for these anywhere else!
In a big mixing bowl combine 200g blitzed onions, 200g cooked cannellini beans pulsed but not puréed and 500g mince, together with 100g breadcrumbs, 100g plain flour, 4 dstsp of crushed garlic, 1 heaped tsp salt, 1 level tsp pepper, 1 heaped dstsp of oregano and 1 heaped dstsp of basil, 2 dstsp of Tomato ketchup and 2 dstsp Tomato purée. Mix well, add 1 beaten egg and mix again. I made my meatballs about the size of a small egg - I dip my hands in luke-warm water continually to prevent the meat sticking to me - and produced 25. Place on a lightly greased baking tray cook at Gas Mk5 for just under 15 minutes. Turn and cook for a further 10 minutes. If you're freezing the surplus, put on a tray overnight to prevent sticking to each other before bagging up.
Tomato Coulis/Thin Sauce (per person)
In a saucepan, bring to the boil 180ml tomato juice, 1 scant dstsp basil, 1 scant dstsp tomato purée, 1 scant tsp salt, half a tsp of sugar and a pinch of black pepper - about 4 grindings. Turn down the heat and simmer on low to infuse and thicken.
I had four meatballs on a bed of tagliatelle, with the sauce drizzled over the top. Jamie, eat your heart out!
