Tom Aikens
Tom Aikens is one of the UK’s most acclaimed British chefs. He became the youngest British chef ever to be awarded 2 Michelin stars, has opened restaurants all over the world and written 3 books.
Tom’s Beans with Parsley Crumb
Tom Aikens
Featuring:
Pulses
Effort:
Complexity:
Cost:
In season now
Serves: 4
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Ingredients:
500g tinned flageolet beans, drained keeping the liquor
120g smoked bacon rashers, thinly sliced and cut into tiny lardons
4 finely diced shallots
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 medium carrots, finely diced
30g duck fat
20g butter
120ml double cream
1 tbsp of chopped parsley
1 tsp of thyme leaves
Zest of 1 lemon
For the parsley crumb:
Zest of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
3g whole parsley leaf, roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
100g white breadcrumbs
30g grated gruyere cheese
30g grated parmesan cheese
Salt and a little pepper
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Chef Tom Aikens shares a delicious one-pot dinner that will impress for little effort. Not to mention it’s great for using up pantry items and leftovers! Adding in your leftover traybake veg makes this a great dish to #LoveYourLeftovers.
Method:
In a medium sized pan, add the duck fat on a low-medium heat. Once hot, add the bacon lardons and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the diced carrot, diced shallot, thyme and diced garlic with some seasoning and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the beans and 200ml of the bean stock. Reduce this until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add the cream and reduce a little and whisk in the butter, check the seasoning and add the parsley and lemon zest. Place this into an ovenproof dish.
For the parsley crumb: place the crumbs into a kitchen blender with the lemon zest, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper and then blitz until coarsely chopped – this will be no more than 20-30 seconds. Place into a bowl and add the remaining Parmesan and gruyere cheese then sprinkle on the parsley crumb and bake in the oven at 200C for 15 minutes.
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
Get the kids to help you make and sprinkle over the parsley crumb.
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.
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