Nahvae Frost

Spicy White Beans with Spinach & Quickled Banana Peppers

Nahvae Frost

Spicy White Beans with Spinach & Quickled Banana Peppers

INGREDIENTS

  • Carrots

  • Yogurt

  • Lentils

  • Green Garlic

  • Lemon or Vinegar

  • Spinach

DIRECTIONS

Soak your beans! This one has a 24 hr lead time! And it’s a bit tricky. If you like beans and you cook them often it’ll be a piece of cake. If you’re a first timer - it might seeeeem intimidating - but you’ll learn how to do it this round and it’ll be easy peasy the next time.  

Soak overnight in cool water - before starting - drain and wash and wash and wash. 

Wedge an onion, smash some garlic, chop one of your peppers up; any kind of allium will do. Add a bit of diced celery if you have it. Saute in olive oil or duck fat or bacon fat or just straight up bacon or pancetta. Toss the beans into the pot and just cover by about an inch with stock if you have it, water if you don’t,  a lemon and a healthy splash of olive oil thyme, fresh bay if you have it - (drop us a line if you need some - we almost always have both on hand). 

Bring the whole thing to a boil - covered. Drop to a simmer. Keep it covered - keep the simmer low. They’ll take a while to cook - you want to make sure they’re cooked well - but not overcooked. 

If you’re not careful, and you overcook or try to speed it up - they’ll split - and that will be a bummer. Cook them til they’re juuuuuust cooked through - add salt - a little more than you’d like to think - cover and let sit for 20 min. 

This should season them - and complete the cooking. 

If it didn’t - that’s cool - you can keep cooking them - just keep a very close eye on them. 

When you’re sure the beans are cooked - season them as you like. When we do these hot - sometimes we’ll take a bit of the stock, fold in toasted bread, blend and pour it back in. It makes an incredible, creamy stew kind of situation. You can serve them cold - drain them, toss with vinegar and olive oil and make it like ‘bean salad’ or beans in vinaigrette. 

Add your spinach to the beans, hot or cold. Add mushrooms to the mix (I almost always do) add roasted and pulled chicken if you like or serve with poached tuna on top (always a delight). 

Take your radishes (any kind of radish) chop however you like and toss with lemon zest, lemon juice and some crunchy salt. Top with the feta. Add some parsley if you’re feeling it. I’m into parsley. 

Quickled banana peppers are easier than you think. It’s a fake pickle. It’s like a marinade, really with pickle clothes. You’ll slice the peppers, slice a red onion (or shave it on the mandolin), toss in white wine, distilled white or champagne vinegar with some salt and let them sit for 10 min. I suppose you could use a different vinegar - but I typically don’t. 

You can eat them solo - toss them with the beans / toss them with the radishes - whatever you want. 

I started to salivate when writing this one; I want to eat it with a pile of crusty bread and a huge slab of butter.