Beans, yellow tomatoes, sage and sausages

Right then, I said, as I was surrounded by a tumbling wall of tinned tomatoes and beans, we really need to get through some of that store cupboard.

When I go shopping I will often pick up tins of tomatoes or beans because you can always make a meal, very quickly, from them. You never know when people may suddenly arrive and need feeding, or when you really just can’t face going to the supermarket at the end of a long day at work. I like to plan ahead – after all, what if there is a crisis and we are trapped, at the top of our apartment building,  with only the contents of the kitchen?  I need to be sure we can eat , at least. What if the shops are suddenly and mysteriously emptied of everything? I’d better have stuff in that won’t go off. Be prepared is my motto. The thing is, I’d kept on doing it and we were now reaching a shelf overload situation in the larder.

I’d gone into the larder to get some stuff out for baking and realised that the wild and fanciful imagined crises had not happened, unexpected guests had not turned up without warning but with an empty belly and I had managed, after all, to shop on a pretty regular basis and provide meals for the two of us without using the stores of beans and tomatoes. I noticed all that because there seemed to be a wall of tomatoes and beans blocking my way to my baking tins.

The fact that it was a pretty substantial wall, many tins deep made me think that I really ought to do something with them. The thing about beans and tomatoes is that you can do so much… the butter beans, softly mashed, make a quick and lovely alternative to mashed potato, the tomatoes can be used in the rich and soothing Tomato Rice soup or to make a ragu base for the indulgent, quick and easy lasagne, or in the vegetarian squash and goat’s cheese lasagne. The cannellini beans can be transformed into the Bear’s very favourite, Italian derived Beans on toast. I have borlotti beans and haricot beans, I have plum tomatoes and yellow tomatoes…..they were all just waiting for me. They were all just waiting to fall on me, apparently.

I decided to delay the baking session and make something to eat instead from the cans that were now falling off the shelves because I had balanced them precariously, one on top of another, after every shopping trip and then tried to shove them to one side so I could get at my shortbread mold. Falling with a clatter and bouncing off my bare feet. So… beans and tomatoes…..

Yellow tomatoes….

I’d seen these and thought I would have to try them… and now, it seemed, I was going to do it. They would be a change from the richness of red plum tomatoes…. I had some fresh sage as well.

So, two tins of cannellini beans were also removed from the now collapsed wall of tins and I looked around to see what else I had. The baking could wait for a while. I was going to make something for supper.

I love sage – not only the smell of it and the depth of flavour it adds to a dish (perfect with pork or tomatoes) but I also love the beautiful softness of its leaves and the delicate colour. All of which will disappear in cooking, I know, but I do like to rub it between my fingers and appreciate its soft silkiness and the smell as it bruises….

I had plenty of fresh garlic, too.

The first step, as with so many dishes, is to soften a chopped onion in a little oil. Adding salt makes the onion soften gently and release its flavour as it turns translucent. If you don’t add salt you are more likely to end up with bronzed, fried onions.

The next step is to open your tins of beans and rinse off the gloopy liquid surrounding them – this will be a mixture of the water they were packed in and any stray bits of starchiness from the beans themselves.

Toss the beans in the soft and glistening onions and add some chopped sage.

And then… those tomatoes. I’d not seen tins of yellow tomatoes before and I’d been curious to find out what they tasted like. They were certainly yellow. A beautiful, vibrant, cheerful yellow.

How pretty they were! They tasted nice too – sharper and yet sweeter than a tin of red tomatoes. Almost a cleaner taste in a way – you know how red tomatoes have a rich deepness to them? These seemed lighter, but just as flavourful. I added them to the beans, sage and onion.

I’d been at the  Farm shop and they had been doing Italian style sausages – what this means is that they were sausages with some red wine and fennel added so I reckoned they would be perfect with my beans and tomatoes. While the beans and tomatoes cooked together, I started frying the sausages.

And look how gorgeous the beans and tomato was!

Those sausages fried beautifully, with the red wine helping make that deliciosuly sticky and brown, glistening skin.

The tomato and beans were a light and delicious mix and the perfect base to serve the sauasages on.

I fried some sage leaves separately – just quickly – until they were crisp.

It was the perfect mouthful – the softness of the beans, the sweet sharpness of the tomatoes and the meaty richness of the sausage….. Delicious. Quick, simple, inexpensive. What more could I want?

Well, I could want the larder to be tidy … but at least three tins had been removed. That’s a start, right?

Beans…. for beans on toast

When I want to cheer the Bear up, or give him a special treat,  I tend to make him beans. It’s probably his favourite meal.

When he’s been travelling, he will phone from some far-flung corner of the world and ask me if I will make him beans on toast when he gets in.

This isn’t the ordinary, open a can, heat through and serve on white sliced sort of beans on toast… this is something that has developed in the time we have been together.

It all started when he asked me to marry him and I accepted (but you guessed that bit, right?) and then I went to Florence with my best friend for a little holiday. I have to point out, though, that this had been arranged for ages.. it wasn’t a reaction to being engaged. Anyway, D and I had a marvellous time, visiting her son and while we were there, often had cannellini beans with tomato and sage and pancetta, served with good Italian bread…. a traditional Tuscan dish. It is truly delicious – very simple but beautifully tasty.

I asked the chef at one restaurant, La Giostra how it was done. Now, I said these weren’t just any beans, nor was this just any chef…he is Prince Dimitri Kunz d’Asburgo Lorena.

It’s just beans he said…… cannellini beans in stock from vegetables, with some sage, olive oil, garlic, tomatoes and pancetta. But it’s slow…. you take your time. The flavours reflect the care you put into it.

When I came back I was telling the Bear about this wonderful restaurant, in a 16th Century building in the heart of Florence and how one of my favourite things had probably been this incredibly simple dish. He asked me to try and make it for him. And I did. I remembered what Prince Dimitri had said and I produced beans Tuscan style and it became a favourite of ours …. but as with all cooking, things change over time. I replaced, at one point, the pancetta with streaky bacon and chorizo, giving it a deeper, richer flavour and, after going out one day and leaving the beans bubbling down in the tomatoes until it became a thicker, more concentrated tomatoey bean dish, realised I liked it more with a thicker sauce. Maybe that’s because I’m not eating it in Florence….

I serve it with toasted No Knead Bread and we call it beans on toast.

First, get a bag of cannellini beans  – you will need about 250g for maybe 4 or so healthy sized portions. Dried beans need to be soaked overnight to get them ready for their proper cooking.

I once had dried beans that no matter what I did with them, they just refused to soften. Maybe they were a rogue batch, so after that I always made sure I had some cans of cannellini beans in as well. They are just as good and means that you can make beans that day, if you want them rather than waiting for the following day after they have soaked overnight.

So… either soak your beans and start the recipe the next day.. or open 3 cans of beans….

Give the beans a good rinse and then put them in a pot with some fresh water, some sprigs of sage and a carrot to add flavour to the stock.

Peel and chop 3 or 4 cloves of garlic (I cut it to roughly the size of the beans) and put them in the pot with a good slug of olive oil.

And then set the beans away – bring the pan to the boil, gently and then let them bubble softly away at a simmer until they soften. When I had that batch of beans that refused to soften I started adding a sheet of kombu to the pan (remembering to fish it out later) This is Japanese seaweed and it is supposed to help beans soften… it also adds a savour to the stock – more of the umami hit that makes everything taste so rich and full. Not seaweedy at all, so don’t worry.  It’s not hard to get hold of if you want to give it a go – it will be in the health food/world food sections in supermarkets.

Let everything bubble away until you know the beans are softening. Or, if you are using cans of beans, just get them heated through for a few minutes in water, with the garlic and sage.

Now add two tins of chopped plum tomatoes

Stir it round – see how the beans are still distinctly white against the tomato? You want to get them to the stage where they are infused with tomatoey colour and flavour.

If you have some spare red wine, add a sloosh of that – maybe half a glass or so.

Turn the heat down so that you get the pan to bubble softly – the effect you are aiming for is for the occasional lazy bubble to pop to the surface. You can leave it doing that for an hour or so. You might need to add some more water – just keep half an eye on it and watch how it goes.

Now, get your chorizo and slice it

Don’t forget to pull off the covering around it… you don’t want to eat that.

Then dry fry it gently – see how the oil comes out?

You need to colour both sides and then take it out of the pan to cool before cubing it. Don’t throw that oil out… you pour that into the beans.

If you have streaky bacon, slowly fry that too and then cut that into pieces, before adding that and the chorizo to the beans.

Stir it all round and add another glug or two of olive oil.

Give it time to relax together – taste the sauce.. is it to your liking? Does it need some salt? It’s really only at this stage you add salt – if you do it as the beans are boiling you will toughen the skins.

Chop some sage leaves finely to scatter into the pot

It should be a rich tomato sauce with hints of the paprika from the chorizo, a slight muskiness from the sage, aromatic from the garlic and olive oil….

Slice and toast some good bread – and by that I mean sourdough or the lovely No Knead Bread, or maybe good Italian bread… just as long as it isn’t white sliced, which would just dissolve into nothingness.

And serve proudly, knowing you have made a meal from simple ingredients, that cost pennies and makes people smile.