These are delicious and perfect with some crusty bread or flatbreads for scooping. Do buy the fancy butter beans in a glass jar if you can. You can make this up to a day ahead and the flavours will improve.
Wine Suggestion: We really like this dish with a nice, chilled Vermentino. Tonight’s choice, the Poggio ai Ginepri Bianco from Tenuta Argentiera in Bolgheri. Long and vibrant with a rich citrus and pear flavour and layers of texture and wild sage to finish.
- 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 mild red chillies, finely chopped, including the seeds
- 1 tbsp coriander seeds, finely crushed with a pestle and mortar
- 3 preserved lemons (80g), inner parts discarded and skin finely sliced
- 1 ½ tbsp roughly chopped thyme leaves
- 4 sprigs of rosemary
- 1 tbsp tomato purée
- 170ml olive oil
- 1 jar of butter beans (700g)
- 2 large vine tomatoes, roughly grated and skins discarded
Put the garlic, chillies, coriander, preserved lemon, thyme, rosemary, tomato purée, olive oil and 1¼ tsp of flaked salt into a medium sauté pan on a medium-low heat and stir together. Heat gently for 25 minutes, or until very fragrant but not browned at all. Turn the heat to low if the oil gets to hot.
Stir in the butter beans, then turn the heat up to medium and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for at least an hour, or longer if you can.
Meanwhile, mix the grated tomato with ⅓ tsp of flaked sea salt and plenty of black pepper.
Spoon the butter beans into a shallow bowl and spoon over the grated tomato, mixing it in in places. Then serve with crusty bread or flatbreads.
(Original recipe from Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love by Noor Murad & Yotam Ottolenghi, Ebury Press, 2021.)
Jono & Jules do food & wine 
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