Where Have I Bean?

Returning from a break with Meera Sodha's Butter Beans in Salsa Verde

Beans are a social media darling. I put them up there with cats, makeup tutorials, and people falling over. Go onto TikTok, and you’ll find countless videos of cooks swirling bread into saucy pans of beans, and honestly, each one of them looks amazing. I tried my hand at it a while back, and I can assure you that my bean content did NOT go viral.

I’m not giving up on being a Beanfluencer, but I’m putting my lofty dreams on pause. Maybe what I really need to do is develop my bean instincts - or beanstincts - before I attempt to break the internet with some sassy legumes.

A good starting place, I discovered, is Meera Sodha’s photogenic Butter Beans in Salsa Verde.

Back in December, while I was traipsing around the London, I picked up a copy of Sodha’s new cookbook Dinner, not realizing that it would be months before the title would be released stateside. I felt a deeply superficial need to cook from the tome, lest I squander my opportunity to smugly announce, “Oh this? I made it from a book I got in England. YOU CAN’T GET IT HERE YET.” (Never mind that several of the recipes, including the one I’m highlighting here, have been publicly available online for years.)

But it wasn’t just bragging rights that propelled me to cook from Dinner. Another motivating force was the sheer caloric intake of the holiday season. By the time I flopped into January, I was ready for something clean, something healthy, and something green. Enter the Butter Beans in Salsa Verde recipe, which practically leapt off the pages of Dinner.

Hailing first from The Guardian, Sodha’s recipe is a dreamy confluence of three things: simplicity, flavor, and - perhaps most importantly - visual appeal. As an aspiring healthy eater AND BeanTok content creator, Butter Beans in Salsa Verde seemed like a natural next step in my life.

The process is straightforward. First, make the salsa verde. Sodha calls for parsley, basil, and mint, but based on the herb inventory in my fridge, I pivoted to a mix of basil and dill instead. It’s not a normal combo, but NBD Fancy is nothing if not a forum for herb innovation.

With all herbs present and accounted for, we must chop them up with garlic and capers, and then dump the mess into a bowl with vinegar and olive oil. Embarrassing fact: I did not realize that capers were a fairly standard element in an Italian salsa verde. In fact, at 3 tablespoons, there is a strong non-pareil presence in this recipe, and as a late-in-life caper embracer, this made me very happy.

Moving on from my various salsa verde revelations, we then tend to the beans. We sauté some onions for about eight minutes and then add garlic and diced chili. Once the aromatics have done their thing, we then dump in two cans of beans, along with most of their liquid.

I did not have any butter beans on hand, but I did have some chickpeas, which made a fine substitute. Next I just had to simmer the beans in their juices for about ten minutes until they were soft and creamy. Remove from the heat, swirl in the salsa verde, and congrats: the dish is done. In summary: chop herbs, cook onions, simmer beans. That’s it.

Peak social media beans.

So simple and so fabulous. I absolutely adored this dish. Salty, savory beans collide into the briny, sour salsa verde with extraordinary effect. Amazing how so few ingredients can produce such a wallop of flavor. Notably, I didn’t even have to adjust the seasonings because everything worked so perfectly.

There is a caveat though: capers are notoriously assertive, and if you’re not a fan of strong, briny flavors, this dish may not be for you. I suppose that’s an easy fix though: pull back on the capers or omit them entirely (don’t do that).

I can see this recipe being one I return to time and time again. It takes little time and uses mostly pantry ingredients. Great for low motivation cooking, late night emergencies, summer picnics, or elegant dinner parties. It also yields excellent leftovers, assuming you can refrain from eating the whole pan’s worth.

But most of all, as I launch into a new year (and yes, I realize it is now February), Sodha’s recipe allows me to reset into a healthier space, leaving the December cookies and cakes and treats behind. I’ve just started my national tour with Watch What Crappens, which means my time is limited and so are my opportunities to eat clean. This is the dish I hope to center myself on in the hectic weeks ahead.

Oh, and it looks pretty damn great on social media. Let the beanfluencing resume!

Meera Sodha’s Butter Beans in Salsa Verde

5¼ tbsp (20g) picked flat-leaf parsley
3¾ tbsp (20g) picked basil leaves
3¾ tbsp (20g) picked mint leaves (ie, from around 10 sprigs)
3 tbsp capers, drained
1 tbsp red-wine vinegar
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
75ml olive oil (5 tbsp), plus 2 tbsp extra for cooking the beans
2 x 400g tins butterbeans, not drained (I used chickpeas to great effect)
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 red chilli (optional)
¾ tsp fine sea salt (or to taste)

Put all the herbs on a large chopping board and finely chop with the capers and one of the garlic cloves, then transfer to a bowl, stir in the vinegar and the olive oil, and put to one side (alternatively, put all of these ingredients in the small bowl of a food processor and pulse until chopped and mixed, but not pureed).

Drain away about three tablespoons of the liquid from one of the tins of butter beans, but leave the other one as it is. Put two tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and, once hot, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for eight minutes, until really soft and starting to turn golden. Add the second garlic clove and the chilli, cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes, then tip in the butter beans and all their remaining liquid. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until the beans are soft and the stock has reduced a little, then stir in the salsa verde and salt to taste. Take off the heat and serve at once with toasted ciabatta to mop up the juices.

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What are some of your favorite bean dishes? Any good bean content you’ve seen lately?