Farm Bulletin: Soak Beans Before Cooking, the Farmer's Plaint

Some cooking techniques are writ in stone. Preheating your oven before baking. Rinsing basmati rice in several changes of water before cooking. Stuff like that. Others are matters of debate, with pros and cons argued vociferously on either side. One of those is soaking dried beans overnight before cooking. To no one's surprise, I give credence to contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm's explanation (see below), who, in my opinion, with Carol Boutard, grows some of the finest beans in all the land.

Why has the practice of soaking grains and beans prior to cooking persisted for several millennia? Biologically, two separate events occur when the bean awakens in the presence of moisture.

Ayers Creek Farm borlotti beans.

Germinating seeds release into the surrounding soil nasty compounds when they germinate. These compounds discourage insects, fungi and bacteria from attacking the seedling before its own defenses are developed. Some seeds also release compounds that prevent neighboring seeds from germinating, a phenomenon called allelopathy. Some people claim these compounds are nutritious and tasty. Poppycock, I say. I suggest tasting the soaking water and decide for yourself whether the stuff is tasty…it isn’t. This is one reason why people traditionally soaked grains and legumes, and then drained the soaking liquid before cooking them.

Soaking makes beans sweeter and smoother.

There is a second reason, more of an aesthetic gesture. The seed is very carefully packaged to provide energy in the form of simple sugars and building materials in the form of amino acids when it breaks dormancy and the embryo begins to grow. Millions of simple sugars are connected together to form starch molecules. The amino acids are connected to one another to form proteins. The starches and proteins are densely packed around the embryonic plant. When the seed germinates (i.e. soaked overnight), specialized enzymes snip apart the starches and proteins, and those unpacked units are then assembled to grow the plant. Imagine a pallet of lumber that is strapped together, efficiently packaged for storage and transport, but not yet a house. The enzymes are akin to carpenters, pulling the pallet apart and reassembling it. They also need energy to fuel their work in the form of simple sugars until the seedling is ready to photosynthesize its own food.

Black beans.

Cooking without soaking relies on the brute force of heat to break apart the package rather than the elegant, gentle, natural mechanism given us in the simple seed. Akin to running over the pallet with a bulldozer. I find the flavor and texture are better with soaking, a bit sweeter and smoother. I cannot fathom the objection to soaking them overnight, as though it is some major inconvenience. Bear in mind, the farmer spent several months tending the crop for your table.  What’s a few more hours to do justice to the farmer’s careful effort? 

So that's it.

You can find a good selection of Ayers Creek Farm dried beans at Rubinette Produce.

Farm Bulletin: Our Garden Beans, a Dried Bean Primer

As contributor Anthony Boutard outlines below, he and Carol have been adapting their beans at Ayers Creek Farm to our Pacific maritime climate and the soil of their Wapato Valley location—not to mention their own tastes—for well over a decade. The roster, along with the beans themselves, has changed over the years, and it was time for an update. You can find all of these beans, raisins, popcorn and the farm's other products at two upcoming open farm weekends. Details at the end of this post.

Over the decade and half we have been growing dry beans commercially, we cultivated more than three dozen types. It has been an effort to find beans that will grow in the climate of the Pacific Northwest and appeal to our palate, and, equally important, succeed in commerce. We have trimmed our list to types with distinct qualities while avoiding pointless overlap.

Tarbesque.

We favor beans that are delicious on their own and yield a good stock on their own when cooked. No need to add stock or meat. Thin skins and a non-grainy texture are also important qualities. Many of our beans come to us upon recommendation of others. We acknowledge and are grateful for their generosity of ideas. We have been working with and eating these beans for 15 years or so. They have been shaped by and adapted to our approach to farming, our environment, our customers and our love of beans. Otello’s Pebbles is the exception; it was a new offering last year, but adheres to the overall idea.

As a general matter, we recommend soaking the beans overnight. This engages the enzymes in the beans which break down the proteins and carbohydrates into simpler units. There is an aesthetic to allowing beans to start the process on their own natural terms, rather than using brute force of heat alone, or worse, the extreme impatience of a pressure cooker. In our experience, soaking results in a sweeter bean when cooked. Nonetheless, plenty of people eschew our biological aestheticism.

Borlotto Gaston a la Ava Gene's.

Garden beans follow two forms of growth, types with a low bush habit and those with a tall vining habit requiring supportive structures. Then there are a handful that refuse to follow a binary habit, called semi-vining, which climb upon one another and the weeds but have no use for structures to guide their wayward nature. The pole types are more expensive because the vining habit requires the nearly simultaneous planting of thousands of bamboo poles and assembling a supporting structure. The poles and structures must be removed after harvest. The pole sorts are worth the effort because they have qualities that are missing in even the best bush types.

The finest beans, with their thin skins, require a gentle hand at harvest. They are far too fragile for a combine. Dry beans commonly found in stores have bred with thicker skins which allows mechanical harvesting and helps them keep their shape in a tin can.

Pole Sorts Described

Borlotto Gaston: A classic large horticultural type with a fine texture and flavor.

Borlotto Gaston.

A passing comment by [Nostrana owner and chef] Cathy Whims at a 2002 winter farms’ market noting how much she loved the beans of Lamon landed this bean in our mix. Over the last decade and a half, we have carefully selected for the lumpy, ugly pods that produce the best quality seeds, improving the quality of the beans in the process. We make the classic sauerkraut, potato and pork jowl soup fragrant with cumin from Trieste called La jota many times over the course of winter. It is the bean that has made Ava Gene’s "beans on toast" their signature menu item—the bean that launched a thousand of pieces of toast.

Tarbesque: A large flattened white bean of the sort most commonly associated with cassoulet. It is a bean for soups or stews where you want the bean to hold its shape.

The original seed stock came from Pascal Sauton when he was the chef at Riverside Hotel back around 2003. This sort of bean is grown around the area of Tarbes in southwestern France. There the Tarbais is protected as an A.O.C., so we deftly renamed it. Sort of like the Tarbais but not exactly. We don’t have the same soils and climate and, unlike the fair people of Tarbes, we pick the pods by the handful, not one by one.

Black Basque.

Black Basque: This black bean is best as a solo performer. Cooked on its own and finished with some olive oil, the stock and the beans make a delicious soup to accompany a bit of toast seasoned with garlic and a chunk of sausage or pork belly. Cathy Whims uses these for her version of Anne Bianchi’s "Bastard Soup." For complex or spicy dishes, the black turtle is a better choice.

Wapato White: A very fine textured white bean with a distinctly buttery consistency. Good solo, with lamb or in an escarole soup.

Wapato White.

We lived for several years in the Boston area. Our neighborhood was considered "integrated” because it included both Italian and Portuguese families. Somerville had its rough edges. One Halloween morning, while preparing breakfast, we watched a hit by the legendary Winter Hill Gang outside our kitchen window—apparently an uncollected debt precipitated the deed, though the debtor was simply shot up to jog his memory, not necessarily to kill him. He survived. The hitmen wore gorilla masks, appropriately, and dropped the revolver in the street. We called the police and they investigated. They told us in a perfunctory manner that the getaway car was dumped in Dedham, as if that might be expected, and the victim claimed he didn’t know anything or anyone—that was definitely expected. Notwithstanding this incident, it was a friendly neighborhood where children, our daughter included, played in the street.

In the Boston area, bean and escarole soup was a winter favorite of the Italian and Portuguese communities, and the supermarkets had mounds of beautiful escarole heads for the purpose. For those on the run, the Progresso company had a canned escarole soup available especially for the Boston market. Much to the dismay of many, they dropped that traditional soup. For a while, they offered an Italian wedding soup with escarole, but now it contains spinach, alas. The last week or so, we have been enjoying many variations on escarole soup.

Bush Sorts

Black turtle: Not much to add. The turtle bean has a distinct flavor well-suited to spices and garlic.

Woodblock label by Anthony.

Carol’s godmother was Cuban and the soup was a staple for us. We wanted a fresh, well-grown turtle bean, so we grew them. For several years, we just sold them at the farmers’ market as several chefs told us black beans were "tough to plate." Fortunately, that dainty sentiment has fallen by the wayside.

Purgatorio: For the most part, beans and fish are not a pleasing combination to contemplate. The flavor and texture are wrong. Purgatorio provides an exception. The small beans provide a better texture for fish and the flavor is neutral, i.e. not especially beany. As the name indicates, it was consumed on Fridays and during the Lenten fast, with fish. Use the bean stock as the base for a fish and beans soup seasoned with a hint of cumin. The Oregon bay shrimp is good as well. This small bean is excellent with lamb dishes.

Purgatorio in a stew.

Here is how it was introduced to us. We had dinner at Al Covo, a Venetian restaurant that specializes in fish. The person serving us noted that she was from Texas and wanted to know where we lived and what we did. On a whim, we introduced ourselves as bean farmers from Oregon. A few minutes later her husband, Cesare Benelli, emerged from the kitchen and told us how much he loved beans. The chef then turned serious and told us that we should grow the bean from Gradoli, as it is the best bean for serving with fish. He checked in the kitchen, but they had run out of the beans. A few months later, our sister-in-law Shirin sent us a gift box with several types of beans, by coincidence it included "purgatorio," the bean of Gradoli.

Zolfino: Another solo performer. Classic bean for a simple white bean soup. Provides a lovely stock during cooking. Cook with a sprig of rosemary, thyme or sage – just a light seasoning so as not to overwhelm their fine flavor. Remove about three-quarters of the beans, mash them into the stock and then return the whole beans. A bit of olive oil to top it off.

Dutch Bullet: This bean is a superior alternative to the kidney bean. It is thin skinned with much finer texture, but has a sweet, beany flavor we enjoy in the red types.

Dutch Bullet.

Given to us by a legendary Dutch plant breeder, the late Kees Sahin, when he visited the farm. He was insistent we grow it and it has been on the dossier for more than a decade. You will notice how thin the skin is relative to the modern red kidney bean, a bean skillfully modified to stand up to the combine and tin can.

Otello’s Pebbles: Excellent assertive flavor, the texture is silky and they cook down to a soupy beany broth. We have added them to the broth of lambs shanks and pork shoulder.

This is another bean that arrived uninvited. We were sent an irritatingly small package of beans by Nancy Jenkins, a food writer and author. The note in the package, written by another person, noted that the bean was grown by someone called Otello and praised the bean as growing well in poor soil. Not much of an endorsement, and not a word about its culinary qualities, worse the package contained what appeared to be an assortment of types, something bean growers work hard to avoid. The package would have been relegated to the ACF seed museum except that Myrtha Zierock and Anthony were planting a block of soy and had space for a few more seeds. We joked that the beans looked like pebbles and tossed them into the seeder. At harvest, we cooked up the beans and found they had their own redeeming qualities. They arrived unnamed so we have dubbed them Otello’s Pebbles.

* * *

From Anthony:

"We are planning a couplet of open days on November 10th and 11th. Our hours will be from 3-5 pm. We will have only a smattering of preserves available at this time. We will be processing the fruit over the following week and are planning another open day couplet on the 1st and 2nd of December. As a reminder, for those who find the journey out to the farm difficult, Barbur World Foods and Rubinette Produce, carry robust selections of our beans and grains in their produce departments. Providore probably has a better selection of preserves on the shelf than we do at the moment. We will have the full complement of our beans, grains and mustard seed. We will also have 'Ave Bruma' melons, escarole, beets, large white onions and demi-sec Lakemont grapes."

Photo of Lakemont grapes by Anthony Boutard. Rum raisin ice cream from Sarah Minnick's Instagram feed.

Simple Pleasures: Romano Beans, Cherry Tomatoes

A skillet slicked with olive oil, a few random, slightly crushed garlic cloves browned over a hot fire. Big, flat, meaty romano beans from a local organic farm, sautéed to a satisfying crunch. Halved red cherry tomatoes at their sweet peak, thrown in and melted with the beans. This not-really-a-recipe recipe requires no cheffy tweezers to zhoozh it to perfection, no cloth-napkined, candlelit table set with the finest silver. Though a spoon to drizzle the slightly reduced tomato juices over the top of your beans might be nice.

Sautéed Romano Beans with Cherry Tomatoes

2 Tbsp. olive oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed

1 pint sweet, in-season cherry tomatoes

1 lb. romano beans

Salt to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and sauté till browned on all sides. Add cherry tomatoes and beans and sauté until beans are tender but still slightly crunchy. Serve with a shower of salt.

Braising Weather: A Pot of Beans

It's officially fall. The ash trees surrounding our house are turning golden, coloring the light that spills in the kitchen windows. The leaves that have fallen are dry and crispy, crunching under the feet of the neighborhood children walking to school. The urge to kick through the drifts of leaves on the parking strip is almost impossible to resist, and I can hear that most autumnal of sounds as the kids (and sometimes their parents) succumb to their siren song.

Willowood Farm Rockwell beans.

Nighttime temperatures are getting down into the 40s, requiring the addition of thick comforters to the beds, and mornings are brisk, with just enough of a chill to require pulling on a fleece jacket to walk the dogs first thing. The days warm up to the 70s by noon, and a glass of wine on the porch of an evening as the sun sets isn't out of the question just yet, warmth-wise.

This is what my parents used to call nigh-perfect Indian summer weather in the Northwest, though I'm beginning to think of it more and more as the onset of braising weather, time to pull out the Dutch oven for the season of low and slow-cooked meats and vegetables.

The finished beans.

This year's crop of dried beans have begun showing up at the farmers' markets, and I was recently gifted some Rockwell beans from Willowood Farm on Washington's Whidbey Island. This variety was originally grown by an island pioneer, Elisha Rockwell, in the late 1800s, and it was brought back into production recently by farmer Georgie Smith when she took over the land her family had been farming on Ebey's Prairie since the 1890s.

Beans don't need much besides water, onions and garlic to make a mighty tasty main course, served with a hunk of hearty bread and maybe a drizzle of olive oil, but I happened to have a pig trotter (top photo) from the Square Peg Farm pig I'd butchered last winter. Beans and pork are a natural pairing, and the fattier the cut of pig the better. Trotters are almost all fat, and over several hours it gave a porky unctuousness to the pot. A half pound of bacon works well, too, and can be chopped or shredded before or after braising. Even a pound of pork shoulder will do its work on the beans, and can be shredded afterwards to make a beany, porky chili.

Regardless of how you decide to cook them, grab a few different kinds of beans from your local farmers' market and take them for a spin in a pot. I guarantee you'll find one (or more) you'll love, not to mention they'll warm up your family's bellies on these crisp fall nights.

Basic Braised Beans

1 lb. dried beans
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped roughly
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
Water
1 Tbsp. salt, plus more to taste

Optional:
3 bay leaves
Pork (pig trotter, 1/2 lb. bacon, 1 lb. pork shoulder)

Depending on the type of bean, you may need to soak them overnight in water (cover by 2"). Check with the farmer or follow directions if they're packaged. Drain prior to cooking.

Preheat oven to 300°.

On top of stove over medium heat, add oil to pot and heat until it shimmers. Add onion and sauté until tender, then add garlic, sautéing briefly until it's fragrant but not browned. Add drained beans and cover with fresh water by 1". Add salt and stir briefly. Add bay leaves and pork if using.

When it comes to a simmer, cover the pot and put it in the oven for at least four hours or until beans are tender and meat (if used) is falling apart. Check occasionally and add water to cover if the beans have absorbed it all (the amount of water needed will vary with the type of beans and if they have been presoaked). If meat has been used, remove it to a cutting board and chop or shred it, then add it back to the beans.

This can also be done on top of the stove. Simply keep the beans on a low simmer, covered, and check occasionally to make sure all the liquid hasn't absorbed.

More bean recipes: Baked Beans Italian Style, Backyard Barbecue Beans, Mexican-Style Black Bean and Greens Soup.

Farm Bulletin: This Farmer Knows Beans

Contributor Anthony Boutard shares a primer on the beans he and Carol grow at Ayers Creek Farm.

Following on the heels of many inquiries, here is the latest version of our bean propaganda as handed out at the recent Variety Showcase put on by the farming impresario Lane Selman and the Culinary Breeding Network.

Tarbesque.

All of the beans and grains sold at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market are grown by us on the farm. We do not repackage other farms’ production or buy bulk beans for resale and we are certified organic. A theme running through Ayers Creek’s grains, legumes and vegetables is adaptation to our latitude, the 45th parallel. We look to maritime-influenced regions such as the Bordeaux and Dordogne in France, Galicia in Spain, the Po River Valley of Italy, parts of the Danube Valley and Hokkaido, Japan. We are not bound by such an analysis, but it is a useful vetting mechanism.

Our primary selection criterion is a bean that can be savored on its own, just a bit of salt and olive oil. Over the last 12 years, we have grown a wide diversity of dry beans; the beans below we deem worth growing. Cute stories and pretty color patterns don't carry much water with restaurants or habitual bean eaters; the flavor and texture are everything once it gets to the plate.

Soaking? Recommended, but not mandatory.

We prefer soaking the beans overnight before cooking. The bean is a dormant, living plant. When you soak it, the plant opens up its toolkit of enzymes and starts to break apart the large protein and carbohydrate molecules that store its nutrients and energy. In our experience, soaking lends the bean a discernible sweetness and a smoother texture than just hammering things apart with heat. We treat soaking as an elegant step in the process rather than an inconvenience. However, with a good bean, it is best to cook it however you want. If the ritual of soaking irritates or crimps your style, relax and follow some other method and hammer away. Regardless, you are not affecting the nutritional value if you soak the beans and toss out the soaking water.

The next day we drain them, add fresh water, bring to a boil and then simmer until tender. Time varies by variety and age of the bean. You can also add herbs, carrots, onions and celery to season the beans. If the dish calls for meat, we generally cook the beans in water first so they retain their own flavor. Avoid cooking beans in an acid liquid such as tomato sauce because they will not cook properly, remaining tough and grainy. It is fine to add salt whenever you want. We follow the late Judy Rodgers suggestion to salt the cooking water to taste. Refrigerate the beans in their cooking liquid.

Anthony and the Roto-Fingers Pea-Bean Sheller.

The church on the way to town has one of those boards updated with infuriatingly banal dictates. This week, it tells us "freedom isn't doing what you want, it is doing what is right." In our world of beanality, freedom is cooking beans exactly how you want; that is the right way. Unless you want to get really, really sick because of some ordeal poison fetish, though, never, ever eat them raw.

Pole Beans

Borlotto Gaston. Result of a decade of work on the great Borlotto Lamon (top photo). It is a superb in every respect. We have been selecting for earliness, short harvest period and four-bean pods. The last trait is very import determinant of flavor and texture; more is packed into fewer seeds. Chestnuts spring to mind as a description of the flavor. A key ingredient for La Jota and Pasta e Fagiole.

Black Basque. A black bean derived from the Spanish ‘Alubia de Tolosa’. The flavor is rich, sweet with a slight hint of chocolate, and with a silky texture. The flavor and texture is unlike any other black bean. Unfortunately, the supply is very limited this year.

Bianchetto. A medium, round white bean with excellent flavor and smooth, dense texture, buttery as opposed to creamy. A very fine bean, though aesthetically not the prettiest.

Tarbesque. Our selection of the French bean called ‘Tarbais’. Good flavor and texture, it is one of the beans traditionally used in the cassoulet. It holds up to long cooking; a trait which is essential to certain dishes. As with the black Basque, the supply is very limited this year.

Bush Beans

Dutch Bullet. We started growing this variety (left) at the suggestion of Kaas Sahin, the late Dutch plant breeder (Bull's Blood Beet was one of his varieties). The lowlanders like it because, as he noted, there is no flatus after eating it, as if that is a virtue for the more childish of us. Actually, none of beans we grow are particularly prone to creating such gastric maelstroms. We describe it is as the best of a red kidney bean without any of that bean's many flaws, or flatus. Dutch Bullet is thin-skinned with a fine texture and a well-balanced bean flavor with a pleasant sweet edge. It is dark yellow with a red eye. A versatile bean which is very popular with our restaurant accounts.

Zolfino. A light yellow bean identified with the Pratamango River Valley of Tuscany. Vastly superior to the cannellino, or white kidney bean. The bean is thin-skinned, very creamy in texture and is best served as a simple white bean soup.  No meat, just the beans, an herb (sage, thyme, or rosemary) and olive oil.

Purgatorio. A small, white bean from Gradoli, a town in the Lake Bolsena area of Italy. The name apparently refers to the fact that it is excellent with seafood, an uncommon trait in beans, and hence well-suited to the observance of the Lenten fast. Someone also mentioned detecting a hint of sulfur in the first stage of cooking, a plausible Dantesque explanation. These beans were recommended to us by Cesar Benelli of the restaurant Al Covo in Venice. Not only does the delicate flavor work nicely with seafood, the skin is thicker and more distinct than that of our other beans, which lends a nice texture when mixed with soft fish. Closer to home, Cathy Whims of Nostrana makes a lovely seafood soup with fish, a hint of cumin, sautéed onions and the beans in their cooking broth.

Farm Bulletin: Regarding Black Radish & Storage of Farm Crops

All farmers must use their powers of divination when predicting not only which crops will do well in the coming growing season, but also what market customers will be looking for in the future. Contributor Anthony Boutard has a pretty sterling track record on both counts, as the line that forms at the Ayers Creek Farm stand—even before the bell rings—at the Hillsdale Farmers' Market attests.

Regarding black radish

Around here, we have a hunch that black radish is the kale of the future, one of those dismissed vegetables that will suddenly become a must-have because it is packed with outstanding nutritional qualities. In particular, it is renowned as a liver stimulant, which is why it is favored in northern European countries where the winter diet is rich in pork fat and the denizens imbibe beer generously to warm the gloom of the shortened day.

Crap, that sounds just like Portland.

Shredded black radish salad with vinaigrette.

To prepare it, we shred the root—peel on—with a mandolin and then salt it heavily for a half hour or so. This tempers its wilder, harsh nature and tenderizes the flesh. Rinse the salt off, then dress it as a salad with either lemon juice and olive oil or with a dab of sour cream. Treat it as you would a pickle, a nice morsel on the plate. Today, Sylvia and I had a mixed root salad with black radish, knob celery and carrots to accompany our purgatorio bean soup.

Adds a peppery crunch to pizza, too.

My father grew black radish and had a special German tool that sliced the root paper thin. He would salt the slices as an accompaniment with beer, and as kids we loved their sharp flavor even before attaining drinking age. I have not travelled in Germany during black radish season, but he told us that the taverns always served these radishes to keep beer steins empty, and to keep the livers working well. A healthy symmetry.

Some people cook them, but that is, for the moment, beyond my ken. Maybe we can get Linda to figure that out.

A Note on Storage

We keep onions, spuds, roots and greens in a cool, shaded, moist location. A breezeway or overhang that catches a bit of rain on a gust is good. A garage is okay if the roots are kept moist. Throw a wet dish cloth or two on top of the roots. Do not let the roots freeze, though—bring them in for the night if gets very cold. Onions, on the other hand, are amazingly resilient. They can freeze hard as a stone and are just fine, thank you.

Our cornmeal is stone-ground from the whole grain, so it is high in perishable oils and provides an irresistible bouquet for pantry pests. The meal is best stored in a mason jar in the refrigerator or freezer.* Glass protects it against odors from other foods. Frikeh lasts longer stored in this manner.

Mature beans and grains do well in a cool, dark place, not damp, but not very dry either. The cellar or garage is not a bad location, provided it is protected from rodents. It is not necessary nor do we recommend refrigerating or freezing them. Cayennes can be stored in the same manner. We deseed and remove the membrane from some and keep them in a mason jar in the kitchen, grinding them as needed.

Whole squash and sweet potatoes are organs of tropical plants, and die if kept in a cold place. They will last upwards of a year on the counter in the kitchen. Keep them at 60°F (15°C) or above. Both organs reach their peak quality in December and January. Do not bother trying this with Brand X sweet potatoes as they may have been put in cold storage and thus are physiologically dead already. Ours are treated with kid gloves because we propagate the new crop from them. We don't even put those we plan to sell into the van until we are ready to leave for Hillsdale, lest they get chilled overnight.

Sliced squash will hold a few days in the fridge. Otherwise, cook it and freeze the puree until needed.

Preserves unopened last well nigh forever in a cool dark location. Once opened, into the refrigerator they go.

*  I simply throw the zip-lock bags in the freezer, or package several together in a large gallon bag. - KB

Gussy Up Baked Beans: Add an Italian Accent

Quick: Name the most ubiquitous foods at summer picnics.

Hot dogs. Hamburgers. Potato salad. Baked beans. Extra points if you envision them on a picnic table covered with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth. Maybe some smoke from the barbecue wafting by.

They're all-American classics for a reason, of course. Generations have grown up putting yellow mustard and ketchup—spelling it catsup, apparently, has gone the way of the dodo—pickles and onions on their burgers. But sometimes it's fun to mess with the classics once in awhile, especially if the tweaks, if not a paradigm-shifting improvement over the original, at least offer a delicious alternative.

I was musing over contributor Jim Dixon's potato salad recipe that called for green garlic and capers, then remembered a post he'd done a few years ago about baked beans. He'd baked them in the oven and then, to finish them off, added a version of an Italian agrodulce or sweet-and-sour preparation that mimicked good old American baked beans.

I'd soaked a pound of dried purgatorio beans from Ayers Creek Farm overnight and was planning to serve them with a roasted chicken for dinner. Baked beans, I thought, would be the perfect accompaniment and give me the chance to try out Jim's method. A little tweaking was done to his original recipe, of course, but my family liked the new twist on this classic, evidenced by the scraped-clean serving dish. I hope you'll like it as much!

Baked Beans Italian Style

2 c. dried beans (I used borlotto, but pretty much any dried bean would do)
Water
2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 bay leaves
1/4 lb. bacon
1 large onion, chopped fine
1/2 c. honey
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
1/4 c. sage leaves, chopped fine

Put dried beans in a pot and add water to cover by at least 2”. Cover and soak overnight on the counter.

Preheat oven to 250°.

Drain water from beans and add fresh water to cover by 1”. Add bacon, bay leaves, salt and olive oil. Cover, place in oven and bake 5 to 7 hours until beans are tender (a slow cooker would work well, too).

One hour before the end of the cooking time for the beans, combine the onions, honey, vinegar and sage in a small saucepan and simmer for 1 hour. When beans are tender, add onion mixture to them and combine, then bake for an additional hour. Remove the bay leaves. Remove the piece of bacon and slice it into pieces or shred it, then stir it back into the beans. Taste for salt and adjust as desired. This is great served right out of the oven but is also spectacular made a day ahead for dinner or a picnic the next day.

Farm Bulletin: Our Bean Primer

Corn, beans, sweet potatoes…it's hard to say which crop sets contributor Anthony Boutard's heart aflutter more. Here he offers a basic guide to the beans he and Carol grow at Ayers Creek Farm and how to cook them to best enjoy their flavor.

Dried legumes have a relatively short life. Typically, after two years, chickpeas and garden beans become stale and eventually they may not even soften up no matter how much they are cooked. They are in their prime for six months after harvest, and good for a year.

Anthony and the Roto-Fingers Pea-Bean Sheller.

The bean is a seed and the two halves within the seed coat are storage leaves bridged by a stalk supporting the root and a shoot which will grow into the plant. The cotyledons store a mixture of carbohydrates (long chains of sugar molecules) and proteins (long chains of amino acids) that were originally formed in special seed tissue called the endosperm. In grains, the endosperm is retained, but in legumes and many other plants, it is entirely absorbed into the cotyledons. This repackaging of these long molecules apparently makes them vulnerable to tangling, sort of like the way that elastic bands, string and paper clips left in a drawer will eventually form a knotted mass. As the carbohydrates and proteins get tangled up they become harder and then impossible to separate into digestible units by heat or enzymatic action. This repackaging problem is probably why beans have a shorter shelf life than grains.

Soaking the beans.

We always soak our legumes overnight or a bit longer. As the seed draws in water, enzymes are released which start to chop apart its proteins and carbohydrates into smaller units. In our experience, allowing the seed's natural enzymes to start the process yields a sweeter and smoother cooked bean. The next day, we drain off the soaking water. Seeds must germinate in a relatively hostile environment. To fend off hungry invertebrates, fungi and bacteria, they release nasty compounds that make life unpleasant for these creatures and us. There is a myth that the soaking water contains valuable nutrients; taste it and decide for yourselves. We dump the water, rinse the beans and start cooking them in fresh water.

Harvesting the beans.

Beans cook best in a nearly neutral pH, which makes water the best cooking medium. In some areas, it is customary to add a pinch of "soda" to raise the pH of  the water. Acidic ingredients such as tomatoes should be added after the beans are cooked. Some people believe salt impedes the cooking of beans. Whether or not this is true, we always salt our beans after cooking. Judy Rodgers' advice in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook is to salt the cooking liquid to taste after the beans are done and let them rest. This works well for us.

Finally, the cooking liquid of all of our beans is really delicious and, if the recipe calls for draining the cooked beans, retain the liquid for some other recipe or enjoy it as you would a cup of stock.

The Bean Roster

We sell both pole and bush beans. The pole beans (Borlotto, Tarbais, Black Basque) cost more to grow because they must be trellised, so we package them in 3/4 pound packages. Bush types come in 1-pound packages. Over the last decade, we brought more than 50 types to the market. We have settled on this group of ten which provides a manageable level of diversity and includes our favorites.

Borlotto bean stew.

Borlotto Lamon: This is a classic Italian pole bean from the Veneto. Traditionally used for la jota. The flavor is nutty with a very fine, silky texture, our choice for a desert island bean. Several years ago, a virus brought in by some seeds purchased for a different variety destroyed our crop. We bought new seed but it had declined in quality; the beans were highly variable, with about 90% off-type, and ripened over a five week period. As there is no substitute for the variety, we have spent the last three years reselecting the crop in order to improve its quality. We have invested well over $2,000 in the effort, and we are very pleased with the result.

Ayers Creek tarbais beans.

Tarbais: A flat, white pole bean traditionally used for cassoulet. Also great with kale and cabbage dishes.

Black Basque: A black pole bean from northern Spain. It is a slightly sweet bean with a delicate flavor. Unlike other black beans, it is best prepared with a light hand on the seasonings, and served simply in its own broth with some good bread.

Zolfino: A white bush bean with a yellowish cast. Like the previous bean, go easy on the seasoning, just a sprig of sage or rosemary is enough. We add a splash of vinegar and olive oil before serving.

Purgatorio: A small white bean traditionally served with fish. We have it courtesy of our sister-in-law, Shirin. Many years ago, we had dinner at Al Covo, a restaurant that specializes in fish, and the person serving us noted that she was from Texas and wanted to know where we lived and what we did. We introduced ourselves as bean farmers from Oregon. A few minutes later her husband, Cesare Benelli, came out and told us how much he loved beans. The chef then turn serious and told us that we should grow the bean from Gradoli, as it is the best bean for serving with fish. He checked in the kitchen, but had run out of the beans. A few months later, Shirin sent us a box with several types of beans, including 'purgatorio', the bean of Gradoli. This week, we enjoyed them as a soup in their own broth with some Oregon bay shrimp sauteed with a bit of cumin and lots of freshly ground cayenne.

Black Turtle: The standard black bean for Cuban and Mexican dishes. Holds it own in the company of strong seasonings and whatever else you fling at it.

Gorgeous Dutch Bullets. 

Dutch Bullet: A golden round bean with a red eye. Good for soup, perhaps with some escarole added. The late Dutch plant breeder, Kees Sahin, recommended  that we grow these beans as they are a favorite in Holland. Our friend, Alice Doyle of Log House Plants, brought Kees to the farm and we spent a whole evening tasting and talking about beans and other vegetables. By coincidence, our neighbors grew several acres 'Bull's Blood' beet for seed this year which is one of Kees's varieties.

Vermont Cranberry: A red kidney bean with dark streaks. Use as you would other red kidney beans. The common name is a misnomer as cranberry beans are round and red like the fruit. This type of bean used to be called a horticultural bean, and is very similar to the old 'Boston Favorite' bean, and it will be perfect for baked beans.

Soldier: A white kidney bean from Northern New England. Similar to the other white kidney beans, the cannellino and lingot. Good for soups and other dishes that call for navy beans or white kidney beans.

Flageolet: A small, greenish bean traditionally served with lamb. It is also good in a gratin. It is named after a small wind instrument related to the recorder, a reference to its long, delicate pod.

Farm Bulletin: The Shell Bean, Explained

The first time I saw shell beans in the produce section at the market, I was intrigued. I'd cooked dry beans for years, but had never seen anything like these lovely little beans with their glowing, translucent skins and various colored specks and splotches. Would that I had this explanation from contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm to read.

One of the earliest vegetable crops we planted at the farm was shell beans. It was one of those odd ideas that got lodged in our heads, yet we were clueless as to how handle them at a commercial scale. A couple of years later we would repeat the scene with flint corn and frikeh. One of the advantages of farm equipment is that you can plow under your blunders and failures, such as summer turnips, emboldening the creative streak. The beans were planted and we began began to practice the pitch. Sitting around on a hot summer's afternoon shelling beans is a great family time, just like shelling peas. Though, truth be told, as children we had regarded shelling peas and beans as a dreary chore taking us away from far better things.

In the spring of 2000 we planted several different varieties. In June, before the craziness of harvest began, Carol took a week off to visit her parents. In a rural country store, she saw a container of freshly shelled butter beans (limas). She joked that it must be a lot of work to shell all those beans. The woman directed her to a shed out back where they had a bean shelling machine. The big green wooden machine had hand-routed on its front panel "Roto-Fingers Pea-Bean Sheller" (top photo, in the Ayers Creek barn). The manufacturer was Welborn Devices in Laurel, Mississippi. A few weeks later, Larry Welborn shipped his first Roto-Fingers west of the Continental Divide. He quipped that it is highly unusual to find any identifying marks on the machines because, once a farmer had one, the information was obliterated to keep it away from any competitors.

The Roto-Fingers is a batch sheller. About 20 pounds of beans are shelled at a time, and it is a very gentle process. All of our dry beans are shelled in the machine as well. Fourteen years later, many tons of beans have gone through this contrivance handmade one at a time down there in Laurel, and it still runs perfectly.

Fresh shell beans are the equivalent of new potatoes or frikeh sans the smokiness. They are still developing their starches, and they have more of a vegetable flavor than the dry forms. Initially we harvested them very green, but over time we found they are better when they have a range of maturities in the mix. Not every dry bean is good fresh-shelled, and some are very dull indeed. In addition, some shell in a messy fashion and take a long time to clean. The beans, shelled or unshelled, should be refrigerated. Part of the mythology about shell beans is that they keep better in the shell. This is not true—the shells are big chunk of respiring tissue which generates heat and often mold in storage, compromising the beans inside. When harvested, the shell comprises between 50 and 60 percent of the bean's weight.

The soldier or johnson is a white bean from northern New England with a reddish figure around the eye that reminds some of a soldier and others, with a less martial mindset, see a piece of anatomy. Use it as you would a cannellino bean, very good in a cold salad with tuna and some minced shallot. Get a bit of albacore from Robin at Wild Oregon, or a bit of salmon. The flageolet is a small green bean which is often served as a side dish with lamb or in a gratin. The name comes from a French wind instrument similar to a recorder. Vermont Cranberry has the most robust in flavor of the three, yet will disappoint you when the beautiful pink bean turns a muddy brown as you cook it. At that point you are left to enjoy the distinguished flavor. A bit of acid will restore some of the markings.

Chastened after purgatory among the berry flats, the staff writer is even offering a recipe in compliance with the essential style manual for market farm newsletters. If you are inclined to ignore such instruction, there are two things to remember. Never eat shell beans raw. You will suffer a stomach ache that you will never forget. When cooking any type of beans, add any acid ingredients, such as tomatoes, after cooking. Otherwise, the beans don't cook well and stay tough. In some parts of the country, they add a pinch of soda or slack lime to the water to keep it on the alkaline side of neutral.

Cooking Fresh Shelling Beans

Judy Rogers offers this excellent method in her cookbook, The Zuni Café Cookbook.

For about 2 cups:
2 c. fresh shelling beans
1 carrot, peeled, split lengthwise and cut into chunks or minced
1 small yellow onion, quartered
1 bay leaf
Salt
2 Tbsp. olive oil

Rinse the beans in cold water. 

Place the carrot, onion and bay leaf in a 2-quart pan and add cold water to cover. Cover and simmer over low heat until the vegetables have softened and flavored the water, about 25 minutes.

Add the beans and enough additional water to cover. Some varieties may turn the water grey. Bring to a simmer then tilt the pot and skim any foam that floats to the surface.

Simmer gently, uncovered, until the beans are tender, 15-30 minutes, depending on the variety and point of maturity. Stir a few times to ensure even cooking and add water as needed to keep everything just covered. To test for doneness, cut a bean in half. The bean should be moist and tender with no pale, chalky core.  Remove the pan from the heat and stir in salt to taste. As it takes time for the beans to absorb the salt, taste the liquid, not the beans for the right saltiness. Stir in the olive oil and leave the beans to cool in the cooking liquid.

Cover and refrigerate up to 4 days in their liquid.

Soup in the Summer?

Growing up in Central Oregon, my family always went out into the woods in early December to cut our Christmas tree. (And yes, I know it's summer outside right now, but bear with me…) We usually went with a passel of other families, kids spilling out of cars to tromp through what at the time seemed like very deep snow to find the perfect tree.  Or at least one that would pass for perfect once we got it home and my dad drilled holes in trunk, sticking in a few branches to fill out the bare spots. When the tree had been shoved into the back of the station wagon, the kids would collapse, exhausted, to consume gallons of hot chocolate, soup and sandwiches.

Another tradition was the annual spring picnic, "spring" being defined as that time when the snow started melting from the Cascades. We'd all dress in our winter coats and boots, pile into the station wagon, drive out to the country, open the tailgate and eat hungrily from the basket of sandwiches and thermoses of soup that our mother had made that morning.

These heartwarming memories are all to cheer you up for the coming days of rain, when our planned weekend picnics are going to move indoors and the barbecues are going to go back under their rain covers until the sun graces us with its presence again.

But hey, make lemonade, right?

Or, in this case, a pot of soup. Because, at least in my book, the best antidote to cool, rainy days is something that'll fill the house with good smells and warm up our bellies. Put it in a thermos, pile into the car and take a drive. Stop someplace, let the kids out and have a picnic. Or just invite a passel of friends over for a soup dinner with a big loaf of crusty bread. I guarantee it'll make the rainy days go by a lot faster.

Mexican-style Black Bean and Greens Soup

1 lb. dried black beans
1/4 lb. bacon
1 1/2 c. yellow onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp. garlic, chopped fine
1 tsp. dried thyme
2 Tbsp. cumin
1 Tbsp. oregano
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1 28-oz. can tomatoes
8 c. chicken stock
4 c. mustard greens, kale or chard, roughly chopped
Cilantro, finely chopped
Lime wedges
Sour cream

Put beans in a saucepan and cover with water by a couple of inches. Cover and let sit out overnight. Drain.

Sauté bacon over medium heat in large soup pot or Dutch oven. Add onion, celery and garlic and sauté in the bacon fat until tender. Add spices and stir for 1 minute until fragrant. Add tomatoes, breaking them up with a spoon, and stir; bring to a boil and add beans and chicken stock. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer. Cook until beans are tender, at least an hour. Add greens and cook till wilted. Ladle into bowls and serve with cilantro, lime wedges and sour cream at the table.

Farm Bulletin: Wheat Fruits

If you're like me and have been confused about wheat, corn and whether to soak beans or just cook them and get it over with, contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm has the answer for you. So stick with this one, read it all the way through, and all will be revealed.

Not too many years ago, the term "wheat berry" slipped into the culinary lexicon, probably from the purveyors of sugary breakfast material. We know it is a lost cause, but as berry and wheat growers, it still sticks in our craw. Not only is there nary a trace of resemblance between a kernel of wheat and a berry, but it has also displaced two very good words to describe the food: wheat kernels and wheat grains. They are part of our language. We talk about a "grain of truth" or a "kernel of truth," never a "berry of truth." Ah, but as so often happens, there is grain of truth in the term, even though it obviously seeped out of some sort of crude marketing scheme now lost to memory. Both berries and wheat kernels are types of fruit.

A flint corn kernel split the same way as the wheat at top, with the embryo at the bottom. The lighter band of cells just under the skin is the aleurone layer.

The wheat kernel (top, with the relatively small embryo at the left) is a fruit characteristic of the grasses. Kernels of corn, millet, barley and wheat, and the seed you sow to grow a lawn, are all a fruit called a caryopsis. But, you aver, fruits are seeds surrounded by pulpy flesh, often sweet and delectable, and wheat looks just like a seed. Actually, a fruit is the ovary tissue that remains with the seed after it detaches from the mother plant, whether it is fleshy, pulpy or dry. The outer part of the wheat kernel, called the bran, or the pericarp among botanists, is actually the remains of the plant's ovary tissue that has dried, forming a hard protective coat. Inside the thin pericarp lies the seed itself. If you look very closely, the fruit of wheat has a characteristic shock of white bristles at the top of kernel.

If you soak a kernel of any grain for a day or so and, when it is soft, slice it lengthwise with a razor, you can easily see the various parts of the caryopsis with a hand lens or a microscope. I have found the macro setting on a digital camera with good resolution is a very useful microscope. As noted, the pericarp forms the outer skin. Inside, there a single layer of relatively large cells that looks almost as if someone drew a thin line just inside the pericarp. Called the aleurone, it is the outermost layer of the endosperm tissue. The kernel has a vault of food contained within the endosperm, and the aleurone layer provides the enzymes, the keys, needed to unlock the food. Inside of the aleurone is the starchy part of the endosperm. It is mostly starch with some protein and oils in the mix. This part of the endosperm contains the food necessary to grow a root in order to provide water and minerals to the growing plant, and a leaf to start the process of making sugars from the sun. Just add water, and life hastens again. Even when it is dormant, a seed is living and respiring, and this why seeds gradually loose their viability. Some after a year, some after a decade or more.

At the base of kernel lies the embryo, or germ as it is known to millers. This fatty bit of tissue is a fully assembled plant ready to grow roots and leaves. The first leaf is fully grown. Called the scutellum, and this leaf remains pressed against the endosperm, never to see the light of day. The scutellum is unique to the grasses, and its primary role is to absorb the nutrients released from the endosperm as rapidly as possible, and transfer them to the growing roots and leaves. Most of the fats in the kernel are in the scutellum. All plants except orchids produce endosperm cells. In most plants, the endosperm is absorbed by the embryo and stored in the seed leaves cotyledons. The two halves of the chickpeas are the seed leaves that absorbed the endosperm.

When cooking mature grains and pulses, such as wheat or beans, we always recommend soaking them overnight. Yes, this requires a modicum of planning and foresight. Some people resist and just cook them, or haul out the heavy metal in the form of a pressure cooker. True, if the grains or beans are fresh, you can soften them and render an edible food. But this impatience and lack of finesse means a less flavorful bean or grain in our experience.

Why is that, you might ask? Allowing the plant's own enzymes to work on the starches and proteins for a day or so, and starting the process of breaking down the starches and proteins naturally, makes for a more tender and sweeter grain or bean. Moreover, in many of the seeds, complex compounds are released into the surrounding soil during germination that are not always good to eat. The compounds may be protective in function, or serve as attractants to root fungi. You can smell and taste these compounds in the soaking water, and decide whether they will enrich your life. The only beans we cook in the soaking water are black turtles. One silly notion often floated out there is that soaking leaches out the minerals. This idea that nutrients pour out of a germinating seed willy nilly makes no sense at all, but is repeated endlessly. As noted, some of the compounds actively released by the seed are best poured down the sink.

Simmering at the Savoy

I'm always reduced to drooling by the weekly newsletters that I get from Jim Dixon of RealGoodFood. A combination of memoir, recipe and the week's offerings of his once-a-week-or-so "pop-up" store at Activspace, he always comes up with something that makes me want to run into the kitchen and start cooking.

For many years my booth at the Portland Farmers Market was next to Fred Carlo’s. I’ve known Fred for a long time, and I didn’t mind the savory aroma of frying onions, peppers and pork that clung to me after the market was over. During the colder months we’d share whatever we’d brought to “sweeten” our coffee, and we’d swap stories about business, Italy and the things we loved to eat.

I don’t remember exactly when Fred told me about one of the dishes his grandmother made, but it’s always been stuck in my head. He described how she’d add Savoy cabbage to a pot of beans, then pour in polenta and let it simmer together to form a thick, chunky stew. It was one of his favorite things. So last week at the market, when I saw the dried borlotti beans at Viridian Farms and the bright green, wrinkled leaves of Savoy cabbage at Spring Hill Farm, I knew it was time to make Fred’s grandmother’s beans.

Borlotti Beans, Savoy Cabbage, Polenta

Borlotti beans are also called cranberry beans, and it’s worth it to seek the best, either from Viridian Farms or Ayers Creek Farm. Bob’s Red Mill sells packaged cranberry beans, and in a pinch you could substitute pintos. Good polenta makes a huge difference, too, and Ayers Creek is the best. If you can’t get to the Hillsdale Farmers Market early on a Sunday when they actually have some, Anson Mills mail order might the next best.

Cook a half pound beans separately using my no-soak oven approach. Combine the beans with about three times as much water, a big pinch of sea salt, and a healthy glug of extra virgin olive oil. Cook in the oven at 250° until tender, usually at least a couple of hours. Add more water if the top of the beans are dry. Do this a day or two ahead and store in the refrigerator.

I decided to cook the polenta separately. Put a cup of polenta into a saucepan, then stir in 3 cups of cold water; add some salt. Heat slowly, stirring occasionally and scraping the bottom of the pan. Cook on very low heat for about 45 minutes, adding a little hot water if it gets too thick (I usually add about a half cup over the last 20 minutes or so).

Dice about a half pound of pancetta (or another fatty cured pork product; bacon, ham, proscuitto) and cook for about 10 minutes in extra virgin. Add a diced onion, cook for about 5 more minutes, and add a couple of diced garlic cloves. Let that cook while you chop half a head of Savoy cabbage (use plain green cabbage if you can’t find Savoy). Toss in the cabbage and cook uncovered for 10 minutes or so, then add the beans and simmer for another 15 minutes.

If you want to cook the polenta with the beans and cabbage, add it to the pot after the cabbage, but use less (maybe half a cup) and make sure there’s enough liquid from the beans (add a little water if necessary). Simmer everything for at least 40 minutes, stirring often.

Spoon the beans and cabbage over the polenta, drizzle with good extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with flor de sal.

Cook It Forward

Like a lot of us, most days contributor Jim Dixon of RealGoodFood doesn't have scads of time to spend cooking an elaborate dinner. Rather than reaching for convenience foods, though, he takes a little time on the weekends to "cook it forward," that is, to make up a big batch of staples for the week ahead.

Beans, Rice, Greens, Eggs

Much as I like to cook, I don’t have time to spend an hour or more every evening making good food. But when I do, I make enough to keep the refrigerator stocked with some basic leftovers. I cook a pot of beans at least once a week, make more rice than we’ll need for a single meal, and buy hearty greens like collards or cavalo nero in multiples of two. Nights I need a quick dinner, I combine them and top with a fried egg. The runny yolk mixes with the cooking liquid from the beans and greens, and the rice soaks it all up. It’s one of my favorite things to eat.

I cook the Haricot Farms Rojo Chiquito beans in the oven, and I don’t soak them first. In an oven-proof pot with a lid combine the beans with about three times as much water, a healthy pinch of sea salt, and at least a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Cook at 250° until tender, usually about 3 hours, sometimes longer. Check occasionally and add more water to keep the beans covered. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Make a big batch of Kokuho Rose brown rice (at least a couple of cups of uncooked rice) using the admittingly complicated soak, cook, rest, fluff, and rest technique. Measure the water (1 3/4 cup for each cup of rice), and let the rice soak in it for 20 minutes. Cook in your rice cooker or on the stovetop, and when the cooker switches to warm mode, pull the plug (stovetop: cook on very low for 30 minutes, check to see if the water’s cooked off, turn off heat when rice is dry). Let the rice rest with the lid on for 20 minutes, fluff it with a fork or your rice paddle, cover it back up and let rest for another 5-10 minutes. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Chop an onion and cook in extra virgin olive oil with a little salt for a few minutes. Chiffonade a couple of bunches of collards or cavalo nero (roll several leaves together into a tight cylinder, slice about half inch, repeat for rest of leaves). Add to onions with about a half cup of water. Reduce heat, cover, and cook for 30-40 minutes. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

A few days later, put a big scoop of rice in a bowl, top with some beans and greens. Heat in the microwave (microwave haters can warm their leftovers on the stovetop or in the oven). Fry an egg in extra virgin olive oil; slide it out of the skillet into the rice, beans, and greens. Drizzle with a little more oil, sprinkle with flor de sal, splash on some Crystal if you want, and serve with a piece of toast.

You can find Jim peddling his plethora of grains, beans, Italian olive oils and salts at the Portland Farmers Market in the PSU Park Blocks downtown the next few Saturdays (9/25, 10/23, 11/20 and 12/18). He's at his Activspace warehouse store most Mondays from 5-7 pm. Address is 833 SE Main, number 122.

Shell Game

My first experience with shell beans was a disaster. I'd seen them in the store packaged in neat little bags labeled "cranberry beans," their irregular lipstick-pink spots dotting a slightly yellowish, waxy surface. I imagined braising them with some onions and garlic, something simple that would allow their flavor and texture to shine.

I brought them home, stuck them in the vegetable bin and, like so many impulsive purchases I've made in the past, promptly forgot about them. When I rediscovered them a month or so later when cleaning out the fridge, they were not a pretty sight, and I have to say that the shame of it put me off of them for some time.

Then the other night I had braised beans with roast chicken at Bar Avignon, and it was so simple and such a terrific combination it made me want to venture into shell bean territory again. I picked up a bag of soldier beans from Anthony and Carol at the Hillsdale farmers' market the next Sunday, bought some sausages at the store and stuck a post-it note to my forehead labeled "BEANS" so I wouldn't forget. (Well, not really, but I did leave them on the counter just to make sure.)

With some of the last tomatoes and a few leaves of kale from the garden, this easy braise took a little over a half hour to cook and was totally company-worthy. Leave out the sausages and it would be a great side or vegetarian main dish if you throw in some oregano or fresh basil leaves to pump up the flavor quotient. The sausages, of course, could be sweet Italian or any type you choose, but I'd say the simpler the better. Though browning them on the stove then letting them cook with the beans, rather than grilling and adding them at the end, let their juices seep into the stew and took it to a whole different level.

Shell Beans with Tomatoes and Sausages

2 lbs. sausages (I used brats)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
4 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
4-5 leaves lacinato or other kale, cut in 1/4" slices
1 lb. shell beans
Salt to taste

Heat cast iron skillet over medium flame until fairly hot. Add sausages (in batches if necessary), allowing the surface to get a nice sear but not cooking them through. Set aside.

In Dutch oven, heat the oil and add onion and garlic and sauté till translucent. Add tomatoes and simmer till they start to break down, then add kale, beans and sausages. Bring back to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about a half hour or until sausages are cooked through and beans are tender but not mushy. Add salt to taste.