Steve's Recipes

for 4

8 oz shallots 6 fl oz olive oil
4 sticks celery 250g dried butter beans, soaked overnight
1 tbs light tahini 1 tbs miso
1 large carrot 1 red chilli, de-seeded and chopped
1 tbs paprika
some chopped fresh coriander

Put the beans in a pan of water, add the oil and bring to the boil. Simmer, covered for a couple of hours until the beans are just beginning to get tender. Then add in the rest of the ingredients, stir until the miso is dissolved, and if necessary add some more water. Re-cover the saucepan and cook for another hour over a very low heat. If you have a pressure cooker - and it makes life so much easier that I recommend you do - all this can be done much more quickly. Follow the instructions for the initial cooking of the beans, which will take about fifteen minutes. Cool, let out the steam, then add in the rest of the ingredients and give them another blast for about five minutes.

What you end up with is a slightly gungy morass of beans and veg that smells and tastes deliciously comforting especially when it’s January and raining hard. And it goes very well with the sweetcorn stuffed peppers shown above.

It also tastes even better the next day. And becomes a stew to convert all those who assume stews must be boring or those suspicious things you found lurking on your plate at school, that might have a hair in. Simply fry 2 - 3 leeks and two cloves of crushed garlic in a little olive oil. After a couple of minutes add in about 8 ounces of mushrooms, roughly chopped into large chunks. Expensive mushrooms wouldn’t help here, just swamp the flavour. Once this is all cooked, mix with the butter beans and eat.

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