White Bean Purée with Prosciutto
This is not your ordinary bean dip. A lovely combo of beans, veggies, rosemary, and prosciutto makes this a simple but sophisticated twist on an old standby—and, while I recommend cooking your own beans, popping open a can instead is totally acceptable in a pinch.
Recipe information
Yield
serves: 6 to 8
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Put the beans, onion halves, celery, carrot, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme in a large pot and cover with water—it should come at least 2 inches above the level of the beans. Bring to a boil (BTB) and reduce to a simmer (RTS); cook until the beans are tender when you taste them, an hour or more. To be sure they’re done, do the 5-Bean Test (below).
Step 2
When the beans are cooked through, turn off the heat, season the water generously with salt, and let sit for 20 minutes. Remove the onion halves, celery, carrot, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme and strain the beans, reserving about a cup of liquid to loosen the purée later if needed.
Step 3
Coat a large sauté pan generously with olive oil, add the diced onion and red pepper, and bring to medium heat; season with salt and cook until the onions are soft and aromatic, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the prosciutto and rosemary and sauté for 3 to 4 more minutes, or until the meat just begins to color. Add the beans and some of the reserved bean cooking liquid if the mixture seems dry. Sauté for 2 or 3 minutes or until the beans are just warm.
Step 4
Transfer everything to a food processor and purée until smooth, adding a bit of olive oil or reserved cooking liquid to loosen the purée if necessary. Taste, adding more salt if needed. Serve on bread or wherever bean dip is needed.
Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit
Step 5
Bean cooking SHOULD go like this: Toss the beans in a bowl of water and let them sit overnight. The next morning, put the beans in a pot with an onion cut in half, a whole rib of celery, a whole carrot, a couple of garlic cloves, some bay leaves, and a thyme bundle (and yes, you do want to leave all these veggies whole—it makes them much easier to remove later on). Cover everything with about 2 inches of water and BTB, RTS—bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer.
Step 6
Now, if you didn’t remember to soak your beans yesterday, you can do the quick-cook method (which really isn’t that quick). Toss the beans and all the veggies together in a pot, bring to a boil (BTB), turn off the heat, and let it cool back down. This does the same thing as soaking your beans overnight. By the way, this works for all beans except for chickpeas—I don’t know why, they’re stubborn.
Step 7
The only way to know for sure if your beans are done is to taste them, because different beans take different amounts of time to cook. To tell if beans are done, perform the 5-Bean Test: Taste at least five beans—if any of them are hard, then they’re not all done! When the beans are tender, turn off the heat, season generously with salt, remove the veg, and strain the beans from the bean cooking liquid. Voilà! Perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned beans . . . every time.
ANNE ALERT!
Step 8
This recipe is best when you cook your own beans, so plan ahead.
note
Step 9
Don’t use your big-money prosciutto here. Ask your butcher to sell you the ends, which are usually the leftover bits they can’t sell.
