Make your own Greek Beans - Gigantes

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After podding, we'll make our own 'tins' of the huge fat white Greek beans tomorrow (family favourite and INSTANT!) with our own passata from summer :)

This will fill 12 x 500g jars for the storecupboard
(if you don't want 6 kg of gigantes, adjust the recipe)  ::)

2 kg gigantes (dry)
3 litres passata
2 large onions
2 bulbs garlic
2 tbs dill weed
salt and sugar to taste
About a pint of Greek olive oil (or what you have)

Soak gigantes overnight or for several hours in cold water until fully plumped up.
Strain off soak water, add fresh water to cover, bring to the boil and either simmer gently for 30 minutes, or pressure cook on H for 10 minutes, and let pressure drop naturally. The beans should be undercooked and still firm.
In the meantime, chop onions and garlic very finely, stew in a little of the olive oil until translucent and smelling fragrant, add passata and dill weed and simmer for 20 minutes or so. If you have a pressure cooker, you can cheat the fiddly bit with the garlic - just slice the two bulbs across horizontally, and put them cut side down when you clamp on the lid. After 7 mins on H, cool pressure cooker, lift lid, and squeeze out the soft cloves into the sauce pot, and discard skins. *if you do this, use a hefty heatproof glove* :o
Mix beans into tomato sauce, and add the rest of the olive oil. Season well, taste, adjust. Add bean cooking water if needed for the right consistency - the tomato sauce should lightly slick around them i.e. not too thick.
To eat straight away: simmer the beans for an hour or so, serve lukewarm. Cool and freeze surplus.
To pot:
Hot fill sterilised preserving jars, leave 1" headspace. Fix preserving rings and/or caps. Lower jars into boiling water in pressure vessel, process at 10lb/psi for 1 hour 5 minutes. Once everything has cooled down, remove jars from vessel and let cool. Check seals, label and store

Variations: chilli, fresh mint, parsley, black pepper, what you like :D

I posted a pic of the gigantes in the Veggie Show
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,91/topic,24248.0

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[Curryandchips]

Sounds absolutely yummy ...

I presume the dish would freeze after preparing, since I have more freezer space than shelving ...?

Finally, where did you get your gigantes beans?

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are you ready for this Curry .....





my son bought them back from a supermarket in Greece - we sowed and they growed! ;D

[Curryandchips]

I will have to keep my eyes open for possible uncooked beans in markets etc then ... or rely on shelled runner beans, advice courtesy of jennym. Some of those beans from this years harvest are actually massive, almost two inches long I reckon. They are all recycled seed, provided by a neighbour allotmenteer.

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Here they are full size, boiled.



The home grown beans - this year's - didn't need pressure cooking. I imagine that commercially dried beans lose more moisture than home-dried ones and need more heat and time, but these were almost - after soaking - like cooking fresh shelled beans. Like Tim says, nice beans aren't for overcooking :)