Recipes

• Apple and Blackberry Shortcake
• Drunken Brown Sugar Bananas
• Four Hour Olive and Lemon Scented Leg of Lamb
• Gorgeously Simple Broad Bean and Parmesan Salad
• Grilled Lemon Whiting with Crushed Peas
• Honey Roasted Figs with Butterscotch Sauce
• Just Yummy Peas
• Lemon Delicious
• Melting Moments
• Pecan and Golden Syrup Tart
• Polpette - Italian Style Pork, Veal and Sage Meatballs
• Real Shepherd's Pie
• Soft Polenta with Braised Mushroom Ragu
• Spaghetti with Pork, Fennel and Tomato
• Tuscan Style Slow Braised Beans with Red Wine and Sage
• Up-the-Duff (Tinny Impaled, Beer Steamed) Chook
• Wheat Beer Sozzled Pork Spare Ribs with Sage and Garlic
• Yoghurt Cake with Lemon Syrup

 

Tuscan Style Slow Braised Beans with Red Wine and Sage

1 July 2008

A bean. As humble as a shoe and as noble as a Tuscan lord. Beans, the source of angst in Jack’s house until he proved their worth. Beans, a wonderful food that it’s sometimes better to indulge in when you’re sleeping alone. A big pot of slow cooked beans, however, is best shared, ladled out over chargrilled bread – like baked beans for those who actually care what they eat.

Tuscan Style Slow Braised Beans with Red Wine and Sage
(serves 6)

2 cups dried white (northern or cannellini) beans, soaked overnight if possible
400g ripe tomatoes, chopped, or use tinned
1 prosciutto, bacon or ham bone, or chunk of speck
400 ml (over 1 1/2 cups) red wine
2 sprigs fresh sage
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly milled black pepper

Cooking time: Several hours in the oven

Cover the beans with plenty of fresh water and simmer for 1 hour. Drain and place in a large ovenproof dish that has a lid. Add the tomato, bone, wine, sage, rosemary and whole cloves of garlic. If the dish is flameproof, heat again on the stove, adding 500ml (2 cups) of water. The beans should be covered with liquid. Add the oil, cover the pan with the lid, and place in a warm oven (120C or so, just check your oven doesn’t switch off at low temperatures – some do) and cook for 1 hour. Remove the lid, stir to make sure it’s not sticking, add salt to taste and some pepper. Cover and place back in the oven and cook another couple of hours, checking occasionally. I switched the oven off and left the beans to soften overnight. The idea is to make them as tender as a lover’s sigh, without boiling them rapidly so they fall apart.
Serve with real bruschetta - bread grilled rather than toasted, preferably over coals – and drizzled with una croce, a cross, of fine extra virgin olive oil.