Categories: cooking-and-recipes
Date: 19 March 2010 12:21:09
But by the time I’d finished with it, it wasn’t.
250g dried haricot beans*
Water
1 carrot, diced
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
Garlic, diced – I like garlic, so I used quite a lot.
200g diced pancetta or bacon
2 tbsp tomato puree
Fresh rosemary, finely chopped
3 pints chicken stock
Salt & pepper
The night before, put your beans in a bowl and pour over enough cold water to cover, and come an inch over the top of the beans.
When you’re ready to cook, drain the beans, put them in a pan and cover with fresh cold water – again, you need about an inch of water over the top of the beans. Use a big pan for this, cleaning boiled-over beans off the cooker is not fun. Bring to the boil, and boil briskly for 10 minutes. Drain.
Put the diced pancetta in another pan, and whack the heat up. When the fat starts to melt, add the carrot, onion, garlic and celery and soften for about 10-15 minutes. There’s no need to add oil, let’s have some pretence at being vaguely healthy.
I normally drain the excess fat off at this point.
Stir in the tomato puree, the beans, the rosemary, and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the chicken stock. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for an hour.
Serve.
*As an aside, why has it taken me this long to get round to using dried beans rather than canned? They’re perfect for solo cooks, you don’t end up with mysterious tubs with ¾ of a tin of Mystery Beans lurking in the fridge and plotting a coup with the mushrooms. You need half the dried weight to end up with the equivalent drained tinned weight after soaking & cooking.