Quarantine Cookbook Discoveries: White Bean Gratin

Recipes: White Bean Gratin

Like much of the world, I've been cooking at home, mostly three meals a day, for more than three months. I've got lots of recipes, many of which I've shared on these pages. But even I get tired of the same-old, same-old, probably just like you. A couple of weeks ago I got burned out on my usual way of doing things. A dear friend and fellow lover of good food put me on the right path. "Try something new every couple of weeks", she said. Made sense, so I looked around at the many cookbooks I have, ignoring those I usually use.

There's some really good stuff gathering dust on my shelves, I discovered. And I've discovered something else about this day-after-day cooking. You don't have to eat a lot of meat. In fact, it's desirable to change it up and eat meat just now and then, or in very small amounts. Eating a big piece of meat every day can be darned boring, and it's also expensive and harder to come by now that we're trying to go to the store way less often or not at all. I personally am able to have my food delivered because I live in a big city with a lot of resources. But people I know who live in smaller places now go to the store only once every couple of weeks, and even that can be a scary experience. So we need to conserve, and use the food we already have to best advantage.

Here's my first discovery, a new dish we ate earlier this week. It's completely vegetarian and even vegan. It's gluten-free. It's so delicious we ate the entire thing in one sitting, even though we were full two-thirds of the way through. We couldn't stop. Hope you enjoy it that much too.

White Bean Gratin

I found this recipe in The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Cookbook. I order my dried beans from Rancho Gordo, which is located only about 20 miles away from where I live. Anyone can order from them online, of course, at https://www.ranchogordo.com/ Their heirloom beans are the best, in my opinion, and much fresher than anything you can buy in a store.

When I made the gratin, we enjoyed eating it so much I forgot to take a photo. However, here's the book and here's the page with their picture of it. Sorry about that. It was good. Yum.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cooked beans with the bean liquor (instructions for cooking follow). I used Royal Corona beans, which are large. Any white bean, like Cassoulet, Alubia Blanca, or Flageolet will also work.
• 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 small to medium heads of fennel, tops removed and bulbs sliced thin and then chopped. If fennel is large, remove the core before cutting. If fennel is young and relatively small, like mine were, no need to remove the core.
• 1 small to medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried bread crumbs (I used a couple slices of gluten-free bread, chopped small and dried for 10 munutes in a 350 degree oven)
• 1 tsp dried thyme

To cook the beans:

• Cover 1/2 lb dried beans with about 3 inches of filtered water in a medium pot with a cover. If you can, let the beans soak overnight. If you can't, bring the beans to a rapid boil, boil hard for about 10 minutes, then turn the heat off, cover, and let soak for 1 hour.
• Do not drain the soaking water. Add enough filtered water to cover the beans by 3 inches. Bring to a boil, then turn heat down and simmer, partially covered, until beans are tender. This can take an hour or more. Watch to be sure the beans don't go dry - they absorb a lot of water. If you need to add water, heat it first and then add.
• When beans are tender, add about a teaspoon of salt and simmer a few minutes more. There should still be plenty of bean liquor. Put the beans aside.

To make the gratin:

In a medium skillet, preferably one that can go in the oven like a cast-iron one, warm 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the fennel, onion, and garlic, and saute until well-cooked, about 20 minutes. Carefully stir in the beans (without their liquor) and remove from heat.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a small bowl, mix the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, bread crumbs, and thyme.

Transfer the beans and vegetables to a gratin dish, or just leave them in the skillet if you have used an oven-proof one. Add enough of the reserved bean liquor so that the liquid rises just halfway up the beans. Top with the breadcrumb mixture.

Bake until the bread crumbs are brown, about 20-25 minutes.

Serve the gratin with a big green salad. To die for!