The Cottage Smallholder

The beans that came in from the cold

I’ve never been keen on beans, definitely was not one of the Beans means Heinz fans as a child. Even the recent change to Beanz hasn’t tempted me. In fact I was so out of the whole world of beans as a teenager that I didn’t even understand the flatulence jokes in Blazing Saddles.

Now beans are almost considered the new ‘meat’. Economical, packed with goodness and promise. Some varieties can even be grown in UK gardens – come the revolution these could be a valuable source of protein.

So I decided to experiment a bit with beans as part of our diet.  Surely if they were mixed with tasty herbs or spices they needed taste so dire?

The least hateful bean in my book is the pretty green flageolet so I thought I’d begin with them. We like Nigel Slater’s combination of mashed chick peas and bacon so I took that as my starting point. Bacon can transform virtually everything – even the grumpiest of people smile when they sniff the waft of grilled bacon in the morning. 

As I crisped the bacon I added thyme and garlic to the beans with a little of the bacon fat. I’d found Newmarket sausages on the Tesco CFC so these were baked on the top of the beans with the crisped streaky bacon covering the beans on the outside edges. A handful of baby plum tomatoes were added for the last half hour of cooking as a foil for the floury beans.

The result was spectacularly good. Delicious comfort food that was a doddle to prepare and a perfect dish for an impromptu supper party. I actually had a second helping of beans!

We used tinned flageolets for this dish but it is very easy to prepare dried beans if you soak them the night before and have the time to cook them the next day. On the flatulence front you can avoid this completely if you follow the directions of this cook, Patrice who contributes regularly to Suzanne McMinn’s website Chickens in the Road.

Baked sausages, bacon and flageolet beans recipe

Ingredients:
300g of high quality sausages
125g of unsmoked streaky bacon
400g tin of flageolet beans (rinsed well and drained)
1 chunky garlic clove (peeled, squashed and chopped very fine)
Half a teaspoon of dried thyme
Big handful of baby tomatoes (a plum variety are ideal)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200c (190c fan)

Chop up the bacon and fry until crisp. Retain the bacon fat.
Mixed the garlic, thyme and a little of the bacon fat with the beans.
Pour the beans into the base of an oven proof dish just large enough to hold the sausages.
Place the sausages on top of the beans and the bacon pieces around the edges to cover the beans.
Bake for half an hour and then turn the sausages over and add the tomatoes, to cover the beans and bacon.
Bake for another twenty minutes to half an hour until the sausages are nicely browned.
Mix the bacon through the beans and serve on warm plates.

I served this dish with baked potatoes which I had cooked in the oven at the same time.