Beans and Greens
Serves 4-6
Equipment
- Large pot
- Medium pot
- Blender
Ingredients
Beans
- Olive oil for drizzling
- 1 head of garlic halved
- 2 shallots halved
- 8 oz dry cannellini beans soaked overnight
- 5 sprigs of fresh thyme tied together with twine if you have it
- 2 bay leaves
- Water
- Kosher salt
Sauce
- 1 bunch broccoli rabe trimmed of tough stems, and chopped
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1-2 anchovies
- 2 Tbsp pine nuts toasted
- ½ cup freshly grated pecorino romano plus more for serving
- ½ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup water
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
To Finish:
- 4 oz pancetta diced small
- ½ cup dry white wine
- Lemon zest EVOO, and red pepper flakes, for serving
- Sourdough toast for serving
Instructions
- Coat the bottom of a large pot with olive oil and heat until hot. Add in garlic head and shallots, cut side down. Cook until deeply golden and charred. Add in soaked beans. Cover with water by 2 inches. Add in thyme and bay leaves. Season with salt.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Cook, very gently simmering, for 1.5-2 hours until beans are very tender. Be sure to taste at least three beans to ensure they are done. Add more water as needed during the cooking process to keep beans submerged. *
- While beans cook, prepare the sauce. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Season the water with salt. Blanch the broccoli rabe for 30 seconds in the boiling water. Transfer directly to an ice bath to shock. Once cold, squeeze as much liquid out of the broccoli rabe as you can.
- Add blanched broccoli rabe, garlic, anchovies, pine nuts, pecorino, olive oil, and water to a blender. Blend until very smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Once beans are tender, remove the garlic, shallots, thyme and bay leaves. Drain beans from the cooking liquid. The liquid can be discarded.
- In a medium pot, add a drizzle of olive oil and toss in the pancetta. Cook until rendered and crispy. Deglaze with white wine. Let the wine reduce by about half and then add in your cooked beans. Turn heat to low.
- Add in the broccoli rabe sauce and stir to coat. If it seems too thick, you can always add a splash or two of water. I added a few splashes to mine 🙂 I like it to be a nice saucy consistency!
- Serve topped with lemon zest, a drizzle of EVOO, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, more pecorino and the toast for dipping. Delish!
Notes
*You can also sub 2 cans of drained and rinsed beans and skip cooking them from dry.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
This was SO good! I used frozen spinach as the greens because I had it on hand and it was delicious. I think the green sauce would be good on so many other things too!
Making this for the second time tonight. I cannot emphasize enough how incredible it is. I just use whatever greens I can find, first time was mustard greens and today turnip greens. My boyfriend was not thrilled when I first told him I was making beans for dinner, now he keeps asking me to make it again!