Winning the Shell Bean Game

My brother-in-law Dave had bought a big pile of fresh cranberry beans at the farmers' market as part of the Saturday night dinner he was planning to make for friends at their cottage in the marshes near Plum Island Sound. However, at the last moment, the trip was postponed, and the beans would be part of our dinner in Portsmouth, instead.

"No problem," I told him, "we'll make Asunta's beans -- a favorite Marcella Hazan recipe that I posted on this blog a couple of years ago. It seemed at fitting tribute, as Hazan had died earlier in the week. There WAS a problem, though. In Hazan's recipe, the beans are gently simmered for an hour and a half, which meant we wouldn't be sitting down to eat until well past 9:30.

"We'll have to have the beans tomorrow night," said Dave. "We'll have to find another recipe," I replied. I was sure that fresh shell beans could be prepared in more like a half an hour.

A quick Google search  proved me correct: in a recipe by chef and cookbook author David Tanis, the shell beans took just 30 minutes. That's because the beans are briefly brought to a boil before being gently simmered, as in the Hazan recipe. For seasonings, I combined the best of both recipes -- using some red onion, garlic, sage, and thyme.  The result was creamy and delicious -- not to mention fast!

Fresh Shell Beans 

Adapted from recipes by David Tanis and Marcella Hazan

Ingredients

2 garlic cloves, smashed, then minced

1 small red onion, minced

4 cups of shelled fresh cranberry beans -- about 3 pounds unshelled.

Splash of olive oil

2 bay leaves

A few sage leaves and thyme sprigs

Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. Film a splash of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot. Briefly sauté the onions, taking care not to let them brown. 

2. Add the garlic and heat briefly -- again don't brown. Then add the beans, water to cover by an inch or so, the herbs and a generous pinch of salt.  

3. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. 

4. Simmer the beans for about 30 minutes until the skins are soft and the beans are tender and creamy. Taste the beans and add salt if necessary. 

5. Cool the beans in the broth. (The beans can be cooked several hours in advance and reheated just before serving.) 

6. To serve, drain the beans, add some freshly ground black pepper and a little dash of olive oil.

Serves four as a side dish

Assunta's Beans: Mille Grazie!

I'm not sure how I developed a love affair with fresh shell beans. I'm not referring to the lima beans that were a staple in the Pennsylvania Dutch heartland where I grew up. I'm talking about cannellini, flageolet, and bortolini beans. The kind with romantic-sounding names that show up as ingredients in French and Italian cookbooks -- except you can usually only find them in their dried form here in the States. It begs the question: why go to all the trouble to dry them, when they're so marvelous cooked up fresh? I suspect the real reason is that they're very fragile -- and that so few home cooks understand how to prepare them.

The latter is a theory I get to test out every year when, as summer fades into autumn, fresh cranberry beans appear in the farmers' markets in Boston and Seacoast NH. Because their season seems so brief, I start looking out for them just before Labor Day. When I find them, as I did this weekend at the White Gate farm stand at the Seacoast Growers' Market, another customer inevitably asks me what I'm going to do with them. (In fact, it was just such an encounter that inspired this blog!) That's when I tell them about Assunta's beans.

Marcella Hazan's Italian cookbooks are a great source of recipes and stories about that cuisine. In Marcella Cucina, she talks about the delicious beans that Assunta, her husband Victor's one-time Tuscan housekeeper, used to make him. Perhaps it was the story, but I craved the opportunity to taste them for myself. So you can imagine that the first time I actually located fresh cranberry beans, it was ecstasy. I was not disappointed. Cooked at a bare simmer, with sage and garlic, in minimal water and a big splash of olive oil, they become fragrant, creamy, and flavorful. I must warn you, they'll lose that beautiful cranberry color, but they taste so good, you'll probably find yourself whispering "grazie" to Assunta -- and Marcella -- too.

Assunta's Beans
from Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan

Ingredients
1 lb unshelled fresh cranberry beans (about 2 cups shelled)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2/3 cup water
4 to 6 fresh sage leaves
3 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
Salt
Fresh ground black pepper
A good extra virgin olive oil to drizzle over the beans when serving

Instructions

1. Shell and rinse the beans.
2. Put the beans and all other ingredients in a small lidded pot. The beans should be just covered with water. Moisten a clean kitchen towel, squeezing out the excess water, and fold it to fit the pot lid. (Use one you won’t mind staining.) Cover the top of the pot with the towel and set the lid
3. Set the pot over a very low flame and cook slowly at the barest simmer. After 45 minutes, check the liquid and add a few tablespoons of water as needed. Repeat twice more in 20 minute intervals. You may have to adjust the quantity of water to match the level of heat. (The beans should never be soaking in water, but should have just enough to keep from sticking.) The beans should be done in about an hour and forty five minutes. Taste them. They should be firm but tender and the skin should have remained whole without cracking.
4. Drizzle with fresh olive oil when serving.
These are best served the moment they are done, but they can be made through the end a day in advance. Refrigerate in a tightly sealed container and reheat gently with a tablespoon or so of water.

Give Peas a Chance

I try to eat seasonally, but sometimes (all too often, really) my mouth gets ahead of things. I feel that way about peas. To me, peas seem like the perfect spring vegetable, like artichokes or asparagus. Alas, in New England, fresh peas are rarely available until late June -- hence that traditional Fourth of July dish, salmon and peas.  Fortunately, I've found a way to get the pea fix I've been craving. Right now, a number of the farmers at the markets in Portsmouth and Boston are selling pea tendrils. These actually aren't really tendrils at all, but rather the leaves and shoots of a young pea plant. I've discovered that they have a surprisingly strong, authentic pea flavor.

Last week, we found fresh pea tendrils at the Meadow's Mirth stand in Portsmouth. Usually we serve pea tendrils raw in salads or lightly sauteed as part of an Asian stir fry. This time, we decided it would be fun to try using them instead of basil in a pesto sauce for homemade pasta with smoked scallops. While Dave and Robin made the pasta and smoked the local day-boat scallops in our Bradley smoker, I made the pesto, using the blender pesto recipe from Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookbook. (I, however, find it easier to use the Cuisinart rather than the blender.)

The pea tendril leaves are about the same size and texture as basil leaves, but they don't bruise as easily and don't discolor. I toast the pine nuts just a little before adding them to the pesto and I don't use the butter as Marcella suggests.

By the way, this recipe freezes well, as long as you don't add the cheese until you're ready to serve it. In the fall, we often use it to make huge quantities of basil pesto before the frost does in that tender herb. This year, I might try making some pea tendril pesto for the freezer as well. After all, sometimes, I get a hankering for peas in winter, too.

Blender Pesto
ala Marcella Hazan from The Classic Italian Cookbook
Enough for about 6 servings of pasta

Ingredients
2 cups fresh basil leaves (I used 2 cups of pea tendrils. This recipe also works for parsley, cilantro or garlic scape pesto.)
1/2 cup of olive oil (I use extra virgin)
2 tablespoons pin nuts (I toast them briefly)
2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with a heavy knife handle and peeled
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons freshly grated Romano pecorino cheese
3 tablespoons butter, softened to room temperature (I eliminate this -- and add more cheese, if the texture isn't right.)

Directions
1. Put the basil, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and salt in the blender and mix at high speeds. Stop from time to time and scrape the ingredients down towards the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. [Using the Cuisinart, I pulsed the pea tendrils, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and salt, then added the olive oil in a stream to make an emulsion.]
2. When the ingredients are evenly combined, pour into a bowl and beat in the two grated cheeses by hand. (This is not much work and results in a more interesting texture and better flavor than you get when you mix the cheese in the blender.) [When I'm using the Cuisinart, I take out the blade and mix by hand in the bowl.] When the cheese has been has been evenly incorporated into the other ingredients, beat in the softened butter. [I usually eliminate this step.]
3. Before spooning the pesto over the pasta, add to it a teaspoon or so of the hot water in which the pasta has been boiled.

If you want to freeze the pesto, follow the recipe in Step 1. DO NOT ADD CHEESE OR BUTTER. To take up less room in the freezer, I put enough for a portion in a Ziploc freezer bag, flatten, seal tightly, and freeze. Before using, thaw overnightin the refrigerator. When completely thawed, beat in the cheese and butter as in Step 2. Before spooning over pasta, add the pasta water as in Step 3.