Sea kale, beans, chilli and olive oil

Sea kale, beans, chilli and olive oil

Spring

You could try making this dish with curly kale leaves, or use chard, both will work well. However, if you’re near the coast in the spring, and you happen across sea kale growing wild along the pebbly shoreline, I’d certainly recommend you pick a few handfuls. It’s the young, tender growth you’re after, and if your timing’s right, the flowering buds, which look like small, tight spears of broccoli. If you cook it fresh, sea kale has the perfect succulence and a particularly magical flavour.

Serves 2

Ingredients

  • 200g (7oz) dried white beans, such as cannellini or haricot
  • 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 1 whole dried chilli or a good pinch of chilli flakes
  • finely grated zest and juice of ½ lemon
  • a large bunch of young sea kale
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Soak the beans in water for 10–12 hours or overnight. Soaking them means they’ll cook much more quickly.

Set a pan on a grill over a very hot fire. Add the soaked beans and enough water to cover them by 4–5cm (1½–2in). Place a lid on the pan and bring to a boil. Cook the beans for 35–40 minutes, or until they are nice and tender. You might need to top up the pan with extra water.

While the beans are simmering, set a frying pan down next to the beans. You want a medium-high heat under it. Add 3 tablespoons of the extra-virgin olive oil and, when it’s hot, add the garlic, onion and chilli. Sizzle the garlic for a minute or so without colouring, then, when the beans are ready, ladle them into the garlicky oil, along with some of their cooking liquid (the liquid has flavour and keeps the beans lovely and moist). Reserve the remaining cooking liquid.

Stir the beans and add the lemon zest and juice and plenty of salt and pepper. When the beans are bubbling, start to mash them here and there with the back of a spoon so that some of them begin to break up and thicken things up; you want the beans to become saucy and rich. If you need to add more bean liquid, then do.

Drop the sea kale into the beans’ cooking liquid, cover the pan and bring the liquid back to a simmer. The sea kale will need only a minute of simmering and it will be ready to drain. The simplest way to do this is to set the lid slightly ajar, pick up the pot with a cloth and, holding the lid firmly in place, pour away the cooking liquid. Trickle the sea kale with the remaining extra-virgin olive oil and season it all well.

Pile the beans on to a plate or into bowls and heap on the sea kale.

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