Italian Warm Bean Salad

This salad was really an exercise in ‘Casey doesn’t know what to cook so she’s going to chop and fry everything in the garden and see what works’. Fortunately everything worked, and it all worked especially well in combination! So I chucked it in a big bowl and here we have the Italian Warm Bean Salad!

This could easily be an entire meal in and of itself, but it would also taste beautiful alongside some roast potatoes, with a simple pasta (I recommend spaghetti cooked and tossed with butter, pepper, salt and confit garlic), with a piece of meat or fish or some extra crusty, heavily buttered bread.

Italian Warm Bean Salad

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

600g cherry tomatoes

1/3 cups olive oil

2 large chillies (roughly chopped)

1/2 tsp salt

1 brown onion cut into thin rings

3 sticks of celery (~300g)

1 zucchini (~300g)

1/2 fennel bulb (~300g)

4 cloves garlic, diced

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp butter

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

2 cans butter beans (drained)

1 tsp oil

Peel from 1 lemon

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp black pepper cracked

100g basil leaves

Method

First, fry your tomatoes. Put the cherry tomatoes, olive oil and chillies in a large, deep frying pan and fry until the tomatoes begin to blister, then transfer to an oven tray along with 1/2 tsp salt and the brown onion. Place under a hot grill and grill until the onion starts to turn crisp and char slightly (about 10 minutes). Once crispy, remove from the grill and set aside.

While your tomatoes and onion cook, finely dice the celery, zucchini, fennel bulb and garlic. Put these in the same frying pan you used for the tomatoes, along with 1/2 tsp salt, 1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil, the butter and lemon juice.

Fry until the celery, zucchini and fennel turn golden and caramelised (20-30 minutes). Pour into a large bowl and set aside.

In the same pan again, fry the butter beans along with 1 tsp olive oil, the lemon peel, 1/4 tsp salt and black pepper. Cook until the beans are warm and the lemon peel has softened (5-10 minutes). Add to the bowl with the celery, zucchini and fennel. Add the grilled tomatoes and onion (and any juice from the oven tray), then toss to combine.

Let cool slightly then add the basil leaves before serving.

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