Gigandes Plaki

Big flat beans baked uncovered in tomato until the top ones go leathery and the sauce goes sticky.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 500 g dried gigantes or large butter beans, soaked overnight
• 150 ml olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery sticks, diced
• 700 g passata or chopped tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato purée
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 bunch dill, chopped
• 1 bunch parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper

Method

1. IT IS BAKED UNCOVERED AND THE TOP IS MEANT TO DRY OUT. The beans on the surface go wrinkled and leathery and slightly caught at the edges while the ones underneath stay soft in the sauce, and that difference between the two is the dish. Covered with foil it becomes a pleasant bean stew and loses the point.
2. AND IT IS BAKED SHALLOW. A deep dish steams; the beans want to be two or three deep at most so the heat reaches the surface of all of them.
3. SALT ONLY AT THE END, as with any dried bean. Salted early, the skins set and the middles stay chalky however long they cook.
4. Soaked beans drained and simmered in fresh unsalted water 45 minutes, skimming the foam for the first 10.
5. They should be nearly tender but not falling apart -- they will cook for another hour and a half in the oven. Drained, and 400 ml of the cooking water kept.
6. Half the oil in a pan, onion, carrot and celery softened 12 minutes. Garlic for the last minute.
7. Passata, purée and sugar in, simmered 10 minutes.
8. Beans folded through with the reserved cooking water, half the herbs, and now the salt and pepper.
9. Tipped into a WIDE SHALLOW dish so they sit two or three deep. The rest of the oil poured over the top.
10. Baked at 180C, uncovered, 1 hour 15 minutes. Not stirred at any point -- stirring buries the dried top under the sauce and it has to start again.
11. If it looks dry before the hour is up, a little hot water down the SIDE of the dish rather than over the top.
12. Out, and the remaining herbs scattered over while hot. Eaten warm rather than hot, and better the next day.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Greece · All recipes