It’s not that often – or cool – that people portending to keep food blogs describe the attempt to recreate the flavours of a canned product a lofty goal. But, if this blog is anything, it is not ‘often’.
So it is that this recipe is an endeavour to recreate the amazingly delicious Turkish/Cypriot giant beans you get in cans. While it does take a few more hours than it would to tug at the ring pull and deposit the gloopy blob of beans from a can into a saucepan, it’s infinitely more rewarding (if you’re the kind of person who finds work a reward). Also, it does happily lack the excess salt, oil and probably E numbers lurking in the packaged versions.
Also, we may not always live in such close proximity to Cypriot grocers, so we need to start developing self sufficiency. These giant beans are such a great, heart warming breakfast dish – all pillowy and comforting in their fillingness.Not sure if our liberal use of smoked paprika stops this from being Cypriot, but it tastes pretty fab.
(I swear we do cook things other than breakfast, it’s just that the light is so much nicer in the daytime.)
Giant Turkish/Greek beans (serves 4 – 6)
- 1 C butter beans (or 2 tins of pre-cooked)
- 6 C water
- 2 tins of tomatoes
- 3 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
- 1 TBSP lemon juice
- 3 – 4 TBSP chopped dill
You can’t really make this on the morning of your breakfast, unless you use canned beans. If you do, use two cans to make this recipe. If you do, skip the next sentence.
Soak beans in water overnight, then boil in water for about an hour. It’s not a glamorous task, but occasionally skimming the scummy froth (mmm!) off the top of the water will ensure the beans are ‘better for your tummy’.
When beans are nearly cooked (basically edible), drain and return to the pot with chopped tomato, paprika and onion. cook for a further 20 minutes on low heat. Add dill, cook for another two minutes, then remove from heat and add lemon as well as seasoning.
This is perfectly good to have on it’s own with some nice crusty bread, but we quite enjoy it with a side of grilled haloumi (don’t know what happened to this one) and a poached egg. Ripe avocado and rocket would also do very well.
Estimated cost (without egg and haloumi): £1.50
Musical accompaniment: NPR ‘All Songs Considered’ stream
Man Woman Eat Veg 
excellent stuff. i am stuck eating baguettes in tunisia – this looks good. your other entries perhaps more than the beans, but all tasty nonetheless. also, i reckon upload .jpgs not gifs to lose the dots you get in dark patches, such as in the shadow below the beans. that is all. take care and eat well chaps.
Thanks for the jpeg v gif thoughts, Code. Although this blog is all
but dead.
Tunisia being good to you? Hopefully treating you better than it treats Tunisians.
shame it’s dead, looks nice. still hungry. tunisia so far so good – working very hard and studying much also. missing lil’ Frank and realising what a big job two current affairs films is! she’ll be right but. (as in he’ll be right, I guess.) Thanks for comment. Can I get a charity retweet tho?