Ottolenghi Comfort: Butter beans with roasted cherry tomatoes

New Ottolenghi recipes are here from Yotam Ottolenghi, the chef who brought you Simple, from his new book Comfort, which he has compiled with Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley. For this recipe, source the larger butter beans, or judiones, if you can. They’re softer, more buttery and much creamier than the smaller ones (which come in a tin). This dish works well as part of a mezze spread, or can be eaten as it is, with something like crumbled feta or olives on top.

Ingredients

500g cherry tomatoes

85ml olive oil

1 onion (150g), finely diced

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp thyme leaves, roughly chopped, plus a few whole thyme leaves to garnish

1 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and lightly crushed

1 fresh bay leaf

80ml dry white wine

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 x 700g jar of good-quality butter beans, drained and rinsed

Salt and black pepper

To serve

75g thick Greek-style yoghurt

Thick slices of sourdough (or any crusty) bread, toasted (optional)

Method

1.

Preheat the oven to 210°C fan.

2.

Toss the tomatoes with 2 teaspoons of the oil and spread them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Roast for 20 minutes, until the skins have loosened and the tomatoes are soft and have shrunk a little. Remove from the oven and transfer the tomatoes, along with all their juices, to a shallow bowl to cool.

3.

Re-line the baking tray with a fresh sheet of baking paper and reduce the oven temperature to 100°C fan.

4.

Once cool enough to handle, pinch the skins off the tomatoes and place the skins on the lined baking tray. Return the tray to the oven for about 45 minutes, until the skins are dry and crisp, giving them a good stir a couple of times during baking. Set the skinless tomatoes aside.

5.

Put the remaining 75ml of oil into a medium saucepan and place on a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, oregano, thyme, fennel seeds and bay leaf and cook for 10–12 minutes, until the onion has softened but has not taken on too much colour. Add the wine, simmer for 2 minutes to reduce, then add the paprika. Cook for another minute, then add the reserved tomato flesh, along with 1 teaspoon of salt. Simmer gently for about 15 minutes, stirring often so that the tomatoes break down. Add the beans and a good grind of pepper and stir to combine. Cook for a couple of minutes, just to warm through, then remove from the heat. Spread the yoghurt over a serving plate and then pile the beans on top. Crumble over the dried tomato skins, finish with a sprinkling of thyme leaves and serve.

Once made, the beans keep for up to 3 days in the fridge: just bring them back to room temperature before serving. The crispy tomato skins are a great thing to have around as well, to add to salads and pasta dishes. The recipe comes from a restaurant called Bar Rochford
in Canberra, Australia, where they’re served with fresh green beans. They keep for a week in a sealed jar.

Note:

This is an edited extract from Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley with photography by Jonathan Lovekin, published by Penguin Random House, $65.

Available at:

• Amazon
• Big W
• Dymocks

See more of Ottolenghi’s Comfort recipes:

• Comfort’s Helen’s Bolognese
• Comfort’s Puttanesca-style salmon traybake

This article originally appeared on Home Beautiful and is republished here with permission.