Beans, Beans...

Baked beans, like sauerkraut, can cause mixed emotions. There are the dark, molassesy rich ones sometimes with a hint of bacon and delicious with brown bread slathered with salty butter. There are tomatoey ones with vegetables and delicious with rice. There are the nasty ones that come in a tin, a staple of the ‘full english.’ Then, there are Gigandaes Plaki.

Pronounced yigantas, gigandaes literally means giant beans in Greek. Cooked with stock and diced vegetables and tomato. Finished with olive oil and dill. Served with fresh bread or pita, feta cheese, maybe a couple other meze - tzatziki and calamari or greek sausage. And, if you are feeling brave, cold retsina, or at least a pint of cold Mythos.

When I was pregnant with Poppy in England, I wanted to eat Gigandaes all the time. Luckily, or not, they are available in jars in nicer supermarkets there. With Tilly, the same craving returned but there were no Gigandaes available in this little town. So, I had to make them, because there is no point denying a pregnant woman something she really wants. Making the Gigandaes makes me, and Poppy, happy. We usually make fresh bread when we make them and supper is stress free on those days.

Post pregnancy, the Gigandaes have maintained their place at the supper, or lunch, table. I don’t always use the big beans and the recipe works well with most beans. These are giant limas. Here in Nova Scotia, we have Soldier beans and Jacob’s Cattle beans and it works well with those.

The recipe I start from is in The Livebait Cookbook, by Theodore Kiriakou and Charles Campion. I change the quantities often and have never followed it to the word. Here is how I do it.

Gigandaes Plaki

1 pound gigandaes (or butter beans or giant limas or soldier or white kidney or cannelini or Jacob’s Cattle beans or ..., you get the idea)

3 ribs celery

2 medium onions

2 leeks

3 carrots

4 cloves garlic

2 cups diced tomatoes (fresh are super, but you can use frozen, or tinned)

750 ml (3 cups) stock (if you have homemade, great. If not, use the lowest sodium version you can find.  The original recipe says chicken stock but you can substitute vegetable stock, I do.)

Black pepper (a little or a lot, depending on how you like it)

2 bay leaves

Large handful chopped parsley

1/2 large handful roughly chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt to taste (I don’t put salt in anything these days, because I whizz a little bit of most things up for Tilly, be careful if you add salt if you are going to use feta. I would suggest a little sprinkle of sea salt when you serve or eat the beans.

Feta cheese (as much or as little as you like)

Soak the beans overnight. Or, if you are using big beans (gigandaes, butter, giant limas) for 24 hours.

Dice the celery, onions, leeks and carrots. Mince the garlic.

Drain the beans, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Cook for about 30 minutes to an hour, until the beans are not quite soft. The cooking time will depend on the size of the beans you are using. Drain the beans.

Preheat the oven to 350º.

In a heavy pot, with a lid add the tomatoes, stock, diced vegetables, bay leaves and pepper to the beans and bring to the boil.

Put it in the oven with the lid on and cook until beans are tender, 2-3 hours.

Remove from oven, add parsley, dill and olive oil.

Serve with feat cheese and pita, on their own or with other meze.

Pregnant or not, it is totally heartwarming stuff.