Cannelini Beans with Sorrel

I was given the book Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi for Christmas.  I had been wanting it for a while, particularly as Diary of a Tomato recommended it as one of their favourite books of the year.  On first glance it looks like a great addition to my fairly packed shelves as it highlights the sort of ingredients that I normally have growing in the garden.  To celebrate acquiring the book I thought I would post an adaptation of one of the recipes in it.

In the book this is a recipe for Butter Beans but not having any in the pantry I substituted cannelini beans instead.  I have also altered some of the quantities and varied the herbs he recommends but otherwise this stays fairly true to the original (I say that but never having eaten his food I couldn’t possibly know – I did really enjoyed eating it though (my slight fear of Oxalate poisoning notwithstanding)).

Cannelini Beans with Sorrel

• 250g dried Cannelini beans (or alternatively a 400g tin but reduce the quantities of the other ingredients slightly) soaked overnight with 2 tsp bicarb soda.
• a knob of butter
• 3 tblspns olive oil
• 5 spring onions
• 1 clove of garlic
• a red chilli finely chopped
• 100g sorrel finely sliced.
• juice of half a lemon
• 100g feta
• 2 tsp sumac (or if unavailable add juice of another half a lemon).
• a handful of soft herbs – I used parsley, tarragon and basil, he suggests dill & chervil (my chervil has gone to seed and my dill is tiny at the moment).
• 1 tblspn Extra Virgin olive oil

Cover the soaked beans with water and cook until soft but not mushy (check them often they can get over cooked quite quickly.).  Drain.  Heat the oil and butter in a large frypan (the largest you have).  Fry the beans for a few minutes until they start to brown, add the spring onions, sorrel, chilli & garlic.  Season with salt.  Cook for a couple of minutes.  Allow to cool a bit (this dish is good at room temperature) and add the lemon juice.  Sprinkle on the sumac.  Serve with the feta crumbled, the herbs scattered and the Extra Virgin Olive oil drizzled on top.

I ate this for lunch with olive bread and a tomato salad and really enjoyed the combination.

Note: In the picture I have served the chillies on top to placate my children rather than as as preference.  I shouldn’t have bothered as neither really ate it anyway…..on the other hand they devoured the olive bread and tomatoes so at least they didn’t starve.

For other Tuesday Kitchen Cupboard posts head over to the Garden of Eden and see what others are eating this week.