Showing posts with label Borlotti beans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borlotti beans. Show all posts

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Crockpot Borlotti Beans with Smoked Pork

Cream and burgundy Borlotti beans are sometimes called cranberry or French horticultural beans but they all seem to come from the same original new world source, the cargamanto bean first cultivated in Colombia. Near as I can figure. 

Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely considering how small the world has become these days, I first discovered Borlottis (or one of their close cousins) as fresh beans in a small vegetable stall in Kuala Lumpur. They were already shelled but their distinctive red marks attracted me immediately. This was years ago (2007, in fact) when Nigella was still doing her quick dinners on television. She was home alone and had pan-fried a thin steak to eat with some mashed white beans as her side. I tried some version of her recipe with the fresh borlottis and fell in love with them. Nowadays, I can’t find the fresh ones so I make do with dried. But, you know what?  They are also fabulous. Maybe I’m just a bean person. Are you?

I made this one-pot dish in my crockpot a while back and I’ve been wanting to share it with you. I love the slow cooker for busy days when I can’t be standing around stirring a pot. Fill, turn it on and walk away! Come back in a few hours and you’ve got dinner. If you can’t get smoked pork neck steaks, by all means use whatever you’ve got. A smoked ham hock would be great, as would any kind of sausage.

Ingredients
2 medium onions
2 handfuls cloves garlic (Let’s not get anal about how many. You like garlic? Hum more in.)
2 lb 3 oz or 1 kg smoked pork neck steaks
Sea salt
Black pepper
1 lb+ or 500g dried Borlotti beans
2 bay leaves

Method
Slice your onions and lay a third of them at the bottom of your crockpot or slow cooker. Add a third of the garlic cloves.



Top with a third of the smoked pork steaks or whatever meat you are using. Sprinkle with sea salt and a few good grinds of fresh black pepper.




Add on one third of your Borlotti beans.



Keep layering, onions and garlic, pork steak, salt and pepper then beans until you get to the final layer of beans.

Add water to cover the beans by at least one inch or two centimeters.  Add another few grinds of pepper, if you are so inclined and tuck a couple of bay leaves into the water. Cover the pot and turn it on low.

Totally forgot to take a photo with the bay leaves but they did go in!


You’ll have beans and pork ready to eat in six to eight hours, depending on how old your beans were to start. Older beans have dried out more so they take a little longer to cook. Check them in around four to five hours and add more water, if necessary. You don’t even need to stir.

When they are done, I like to take a half cup or so of beans out and mash them with a fork.  I add the mashed beans back into the crockpot to thicken the broth beautifully.

Serve with rice or a crusty loaf to sop up the broth and, if you are me, some pepper sauce.




Enjoy!


Friday, June 24, 2011

Borlotti cream sauce with pasta

Once again, my visiting photographer (my mother) took the photo. Unfortunately, she only remembered her duties after eating a few bites. Tomato and cucumber salad with two types of tomato and Japanese cucumber (probably grown here in Malaysia though) with a simple dressing of thinly sliced onion, vinegar, olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Plus a lovely cream sauce over whole wheat pasta.

Ingredients
1 can of rinsed borlotti beans
1 onion, finely minced
6 cloves of garlic, finely minced.
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 -1.5 cups of low fat milk
1 cup (8 oz) cream
2 tablespoons minced fresh Italian parsley
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tablespoons virgin olive oil
500g (16 oz. pasta)

Method
Rinse the beans and mash 2/3 of the can.
Sautee the onion and garlic in the olive oil until translucent and tender. Add the flour and stir to make a roux.  Add 1 cup milk, stirring quickly so as to avoid lumps. Add more milk if necessary.  Cook for a couple of minutes and then add the mashed beans and the stock cube. Add a little water if mixture is too thick. Cook for a few minutes and then puree in a blender or with a hand blender. Return to the pot and then throw the whole beans in. Cook another few minutes until thickened sufficiently, then add the cup of cream. Salt and pepper to taste. Then add parsley. Make sure it is warmed through then it is ready to serve.

Serve with a generous helping of grated or shaved Parmesan cheese over freshly boiled pasta. Serves five generously.

Optional for non-vegetarians: Top each serving with crispy bacon bits and pan-fried Italian sausage sliced thinly. You don’t need much - treat these like a garnish.