Irina's Giant White Beans Baked with Carrots & Celery

Irina’s Giant White Beans Baked with Carrots & Celery

Irini Tzortzoglou

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In season now

Serves: 6 (as a main, or 8-10 as a side)

Prep time: 10 mins (plus overnight soaking of the beans)

Cook time: 1.5 hours

Ingredients:

500g dried gigantes beans, soaked overnight (check packet for soaking time and instructions)

2–3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

300g carrots, sliced

3 celery sticks, sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 bay leaves

½ tsp dried chilli flakes

100ml dry white wine

4–5 sun-dried tomatoes, blitzed in a blender

250ml passata or 1x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp soft brown sugar

150ml vegetable (or vegan) stock

juice and zest of 1 unwaxed orange

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

To serve:

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

a few celery leaves, optional

50ml extra virgin olive oil

zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

My aunt Antonia makes this dish with smaller butter beans because she can’t wait for the hours of soaking necessary for the gigantes beans. Her dish is very tasty, but what makes the gigantes dish very special is the creaminess in the mouth that the giant beans give you.

The fact that you need to soak them for as much as 24 hours just means that you need to plan a little in advance, a small sacrifice to make for so much goodness and flavour, and you end up saving on cooking time. Like so many other pulse dishes, it is worth making more than you need and freezing some, to use for a quick midweek lunch or supper.

Method:

Put the oil into a clean saucepan and bring to a medium heat. Add the onion, carrots and celery and cook for a minute or two. Add the garlic, bay leaves and chilli flakes and give them a good stir, then pour in the wine and increase the heat until it has fully evaporated. Mix the sun-dried tomatoes with the passata and sugar and add to the saucepan, giving everything a good stir. Add the drained beans, the stock, orange juice and zest and chopped parsley, and stir well. You can season with pepper at this stage, but leave the salt for when you get the beans out of the oven the first time – salting too early can toughen them.

Pour the contents of the saucepan into an ovenproof dish, cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Check that the beans are soft – if not, cook them a bit longer. Finally, when the beans are soft enough for your taste, remove the foil and cook for a further 15–20 minutes, so the beans caramelise and the flavours intensify. There should be a little thick sauce left, so you may need to add a bit more water during cooking to ensure the dish does not dry out.

This process may sound a little onerous, but it is really worth the effort. At the point of serving, sprinkle with more chopped parsley and a few celery leaves, if you have them, a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some lemon zest for freshness.

Engaging Kids

Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.

Kids in the kitchen

The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

Activities

While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.

Sensory

Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.

Serving

The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.