What's for dinner: Tuscan white beans
Posted by 3Dsound at Wednesday, April 09, 2008 7:32 PM and is filed under Food,draggin' the line,Beans,Vegetarian,Pork,What's for dinner,Recipe 
3rd in a food series (updated below)
Draggin' the line
Recipes for Tuscan white beans turn up everywhere, always with the accompanying note that the Tuscans eat a lot of beans – that Tuscany is, in fact, a centre for bean cooking. What I find strange is that, for a place renowned for its beans, how come this recipe is practically the only one I ever see? I suppose I haven't looked enough.
Regardless, my daughter and I agree these beans are very edible. Tonight I served them with pork chops (pork loin rib chops at $2.99 per pound, on sale), and some snow peas that might have been in the refrigerator for too long but still tasted good.
Ingredients
2 cup homemade white beans
½ red onion ($1.99 per bag of five onions), coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic ($0.69 per head), crushed
1 plum tomato ($0.48), coarsely chopped
2 tablespoon fresh basil ($2.79 per package), chopped
several tablespoon fresh Italian parsley ($1.49 per bunch), chopped
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 shake organic black pepper ($2.99 per 1.8 ounce)
pinch dried red chile flakes
feta cheese (domestic cow's milk feta at $6.99 per pound)
Procedure
Preheat the oven to 200°F.
Gently fry the red chile flakes in warm olive oil in a skillet over low heat. When the chile flakes darken, add the onion and sauté over medium heat until the onion sweats. Add the garlic, tomato and black pepper. Sauté for a couple of minutes. Add the lemon juice, immediately followed by the beans, basil and parsley. Cook until the beans are heated through.
Keep the beans warm in the oven while you prepare the rest of the meal.
To serve, sprinkle the beans with feta cheese.
UPDATE, Saturday, April 26, 2008: The latest issue of La Cucina Italiana magazine proves my point. An article about coastal Tuscany includes idiosyncratic recipes for mushroom soup, pot roast (in broth with mushrooms and kale) and porterhouse steak ... along with the inevitable "slow cooked cannellini beans" (add sage – the recipe advises – when you cook the beans for an hour and 20 minutes) ... I've got to wonder if bean cooking in Tuscany isn't more copy than practice. (See Avana Mathis [May/June 2008], Maremma: A place where bucolic countryside crashes into the azure waters of the Mediterranean, this hidden, rugged and sophisticated area of central Italy is Tuscany's great secret, La Cucina Italiana, pages 48-57.)
What's for dinner? See the series.
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