You will find this dish in the whole Mediterranean area cooked in different ways. Sometimes as main dish, sometimes as meze. It is one of the Greek recipes which is hard to screw up. You can even put it in the refrigerator and keep it for the lonely nights.... well... as its main element is bean, it’s not exactly user friendly but still so delicious that sometimes I cannot resist...

Take the beans and soak them in a large bowl of water for a couple of hours (12-24) before cooking them. From start to finish it will take you about 1 ½ hour to prepare it. There is no need to measure anything in the recipe, do it as you feel!

Ingredients

• Greek fassolia gigantes, or butter beans

• fresh or canned tomatoes

• olive oil

• onion

• garlic

• parsley

• salt, pepper and oregano and/or dill and/or thyme

Preaparation

Put the beans into a large saucepan or a pressure cooker, cover with a lot of water and boil them until they are almost cooked. This kind of bean needs less time than others, so try it every now and then. 30-40 min is usually enough. Never put salt into the water when you cook beans, it makes the skin hard. Drain the beans through a colander and keep aside.

Heat the olive oil and fry the onions, the garlic and the dried herbs and add the tomatoes. In case you use fresh tomatoes, peel the first and cut into small. Season the sauce with salt and pepper, cover and cook until it thickens (10-20 min).

Preheat the oven to 180 degree. Mix the parsley into the tomato sauce, add the beans and mix well. Spread the beans in an oven dish. Put some more pepper or salt if you wish. Cook it in a pre-heated oven for an other 30 minutes, without stirring, until they look slightly crisp on top and quite dry.