Gerwin from Gerwin’s Greens visited the farm and kindly gave us this handy how to on prepping Borlotti beans, plus some useful recipe ideas… Thanks Gerwin!
“Borlotti beans are the beautifully red-speckled pods with the speckled beans inside. Fresh Borlotti beans are a real treat and very versatile indeed. Here’s a basic recipe to prepare them and after that I’ll bring on some different ways of serving them.
To prepare fresh Borlotti or Coco beans
Ingredients:
- 1 kg freshly podded borlotti or Coco beans
- 100 gr onion, peeled
- 50 gr carrot, peeled
- 40 gr celery stick
- 1 sprig thyme 100 gr smoked bacon, in strips
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
- Tiny pinch ground black pepper
Start by shelling your beans. At this stage you need to remove any beans that are not mature. Recognizing the immature beans is easy and in the case of Borlotti beans the beans need to have the same red speckles as the pods have. If they don’t have those and they are green or off white then you need to discard them.
In the case of Coco beans the beans need to have a cream white colour. If they are green you need to discard them. The reason why these immature beans need to be removed is that they will not cook properly and stay hard and will be unpleasant to eat. Give the podded beans a good wash and put them in a large wide-based pan and put all the other ingredients apart from the stock on top of the beans.
Bring the stock to the boil in a separate pan and pour over the beans so that they are covered.
Now, make a cartouche out of baking paper (here’s a handy how to video). Or, to do this, take a large piece of baking paper that would easily cover the surface of the pan. Fold it double lengthwise and then fold it double again crosswise so that you end up with more or less a square. Lay the square in front of you with the open side to your right hand side and the fold closest to you. Take a pair of scissors and cut a quarter circle from the right hand bottom corner to the top left hand corner. Cut a small ½ cm triangle out of the paper in the bottom left hand corner and unfold the paper. You should now have a rough circle of paper with a small hole in the centre.
Place this cartouche on top of the beans with the hole in the centre of the pan. Push down so that it touches the stock. Set the pan with the beans over a medium heat until the contents of the pan are starting to come back to the boil and then turn the heat down so that the stock is just ticking over.
Cook the beans like this very gently until done – this will roughly take 2.5 to 3 hours. Instead of cooking the beans on the stove you could cook them in the oven. For this you follow the same procedure but as soon as you have the stock ticking over you place the pan in a pre-heated oven at 95-100°C.
Start checking the beans after a good two and a half hours of cooking. They are cooked when the skin and inside of the beans are completely soft and creamy but still holding their shape. Continue to cook the beans until they are fully cooked and then remove from the heat and leave to cool down in the liquid. Be careful not to cook the beans on too high a temperature as they will split and turn into a puree!
Now, you have the basic preparation of the beans ready and you could store them in the fridge for up to 3 days or even freeze them in portions until you are ready to use them.
Some ideas for serving Borlotti beans
One way of serving the beans is with basil pesto. For this you heat the beans in some of the cooking liquid, then strain the liquid off and mix the beans with a few spoons full of basil pesto and season with a sprinkle of salt and finely ground black pepper. This will go nice with a piece of roast lamb for example.
Another way is making a fresh tomato sauce and mixing the beans with this. Serve a few spoons full of this on a fresh crostini, sprinkle with a few fresh basil leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and serve as a starter.
Or, how about making a bean and mushroom cassoulet? Drain the beans and mix a healthy portion of sautéed mushrooms with persillade or parsley in. Add a bit of the cooking liquid to bind everything together and put in a thin layer in a wide ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with herbed breadcrumbs and bake in the oven until golden brown.
Alternatively you can use the beans in a soup like ribolitta (Tuscan soup). To keep this recipe completely vegetarian you can omit the bacon and replace the chicken stock with plain water.