Beans with aspargus

Ingredients

• 300 gr big white beans
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 big onion
• 2 carrots
• 1 leek
• couple garlic nails
• white aspargus 
• parsley
• 1dl white whine
• 4 eggs
• saffron

Preparation

Leave overnight the beans in water, at least 12h. Next day discard the water and in a pot place the beans, onion, carrot, leek, garlic and bay leave, cover everything with water and set the fire to medium heat.

When the water starts to boil, drop half a glass of cold water to stop the boiling, this prevents the beans to break. Repeat this for 3-4 times and then let it boil slowly for 1,5-2h or as long as the package recommends.

When the beans are cooked place the vegetables, discarting the carrot and bay leaves, and blend it together with few broken beans, this will help thicken the sauce. Pour it back to the pot with the rest of the beans and mix gently, always with a wooden spoon.

Chop the parsley finely and pour it to the pot, as well add the white aspargus (you can chop them or put them whole), a bit of saffron and the white wine, let it boil for few minutes to evaporate the alcohol.

Serve with half boiled egg

If you have available, add few clams few minutes before serving.
Hope you like it!
Mr South

Beetroot hummus, tzatziki and dried tomato pesto with arabic/asian salad

Today, I wanted to make hummus. I love beans, I love hummus and sometimes I buy it in supermarket, but today I decided to try myself, and I'm not kidding, is super fast!!

Beetroot season is almost over so wanted to use the last bits of fresh beetroot, and seemed a good idea to mix it with hummus, and it was!

So the idea was to make this three delicious side dish sauces and with a bit of leftovers I did an amazing salad! I have to confess that coriander and I weren't good friends, but I'm starting to appreciate the little spicy aromatic kick of this plant.

Ingredients

Beetroot hummus 

• 150g chickpeas
• 1 lime
• 1 small finely grated beetroot
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt
• pepper 
• 1 nail garlic

Dried tomato pesto

• 10 dried tomatoes
• 8-10 roasted hazelnut
• 100g grated parmesan cheese
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1 nail garlic

Tzatziki

• half lime
• 2tbsp thick yogurt
• 200g finely and medium grated cucumber
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 nail garlic
• olive oil

Salad

• 50g green pepper
• 50 g chickpeas
• 180g kidney beans
• 20g couscous
• 20g sunflower seeds
• half small onion
• half thick grated carrot
• half thick grated cucumber
• coriander
• half lime
• olive oil

Preparation

Beetroot hummus

From a can of chickpeas, use 3/4, aprox 150g (dried weight) and rinse it with water, then pour them into the food processor or blender.

Grate finely a peeled beetroot and put it together with the chickpeas. Add 1 lime juice and olive oil.

I use lime because I like it much better than lemon, which I find too strong taste and somehow masks all other flavors.

Give it couple minutes in the blender and try it. Put black pepper and salt as desired as well as water if you prefer a less thick hummus.

Dried tomato pesto

Again, with a blender or food processor, add 10 dried tomatoes, 8-10 roasted hazelnuts (I didn't have pine nuts but roasted hazelnuts taste amazing) 100g finely grated parmesan cheese and a bit of garlic and olive oil.

Couple of minutes in the blender and it is ready. 

IF you want to freeze this for another occasion, like that is perfect, otherwise add more olive oil before serving.

Tzatziki

In a bowl, add 2 big table spoons of thick yogurt, juice of half a lime, grated cucumber (most of it finely and a bit quite thick) a crushed garlic, 1/2 tea spoon of sugar, 1 tea spoon of salt and stir it till it becomes homogeneous. Taste it and add more lime juice, salt or whatever you like best and in the end add the olive oil.

Asian/Arabic salad

Ok first of all, there is no name for the salad, I just started adding things I had and thought would go together.

In a serving bowl, add the leftovers of chickpeas, open a can and rinse it of kidney beans and pour it too. Grate in the thickest size, half a carrot and half cucumber. Chop really small half a small onion and green pepper and add it to the serving bowl.

For the couscous, a bit more boiling water than amount of couscous, 1:1,5 I use. In a bowl, add the couscous, a bit of salt, black pepper, olive oil and a bit roasted curry powder (careful it is strong stuff). Then add the boiling water, give it couple of stirs and place a dish on top of the bowl so the steam can't escape. Live it rest for 5 min. When ready pour it to the serving bowl.

For finishing, add the sunflower seeds, chopped coriander, olive oil and half lime juice. Mix it together and it is ready!

For serving we had pita bread; take it from the bag, splash some water in top, 30seconds microwave and good to go!

 

Hope you like it!

Mr South

Beans!!

We love beans!! they are so forgotten always and underrated but you have an amazing varieties and ways to cook it. We are going to show how to cook, the big beans, the ones which need to be let overnight in water, easy recipe, it is slow cooking, but you can do meanwhile whatever you want, just check every 30min everything goes as planned and you end up with an amazing food.

So which are this beans we pick today? in Spain they are called judion, fabes, judia de la granja depending which region of Spain you buy them. This beans are big (almost 2 cm long, white and flat).

We followed the package instructions, leaving them soaking in cold water for 10-12 h.

Before and after, you have to remove the water and put them to pot to boil, with some salt, pepper, laurel, and then few vegetables, we had carrot and onions. Of course you can add which ever vegetable you find, they will taste better. Of course the more the better. 

Following the package instructions once they start boiling, add little bit of cold water, to break the boiling, do it three times. This is believed to avoid the peel to detach from the bean.

The package said to boil for 1,5h, but try it, we had to boil it for a bit longer.

For the sauce it is really basic, fry a bit of onion and garlic

Once the beans are ready, throw the water away, but save a bit for the sauce, take apart the vegetables too. Once the onion and garlic is getting done, add some roasted red pepper, if you have it fresh or canned, both are awesome. Just let it fry for couple of minutes because the red peppers are cooked already, and add little bit of flour, like a flat spoon.

Cook the flour for few minutes, otherwise the sauce will taste like flour. With the vegetables you can put it to the blender with some parsley and little bit of tomato pure.

Add everything, the sauce, the beans and little bit of the water from the boiling the beans

Let them cook for 5 - 10 min and enjoy it!

Lentils!!

Here one of my prefered meals; lentils!!

Normally beans are so diverese, so many kinds, can be cooked in so many different ways that I don't think anyone has tasted all. The problem with the beans, if you don't want to buy them from a can, which some of them are really good for salads or for vege burgers, etc is that they need to be in water overnight or cook for hours.

The recipe is quite easy and fast, you don't need to put the lentils with water overnight or cook them for hours. The type of lentils I like best it is called the brown/spanish pardina.

This type of lentils is, as you can see, brown but smaller than usual, which I find much more tastefull and after cooking doesn't break and holds it's shape. I belive you can find them anywhere, I've seen them outside Spain, in Finland you can find them easy at Arabic/Asian supermarkets.

So let's get started with the ingredients:

- Lentils (pardina type)

- Vegetables (onions, carrots, garlic, red pepper, zucchini, etc)

- If you want to make a non vegetarian version you can add some pork ribs, chopped, and the absolute best is if you have some jamon iberico bone piece

- Bay laurel

- Vegetables broth cube

- Rice

So, the receipt is easy and prety straight forward; chop the vegetables in chunky pieces and put them to saute with little bit olive oil salt and pepper with the bay laurel.

Once the onion are little bit brownish add the lentils and the water. Keep in mind that lentils will double or even triple the volume, add the broth cube, and let them boil easy for 30 min.

You might have to add more water by time to time, keep in mind to add salt too. The lentils are recomended to be cooked for 1 hour, so know when they are half done, add couple of handfull of rice, and few nails of garlic.

By 45 min, 1h will be ready. Always with this kind of "stews" taste better the day after. Hope you like it!