Cooking
Lidey Heuck’s easy recipe for braised white beans and greens with Parmesan boasts five stars and more than 11,000 reviews.
The cranberry beans are back, baby. Every year they grace the greenmarket for a very short run, their magenta-speckled pods boisterously upstaging the green and wax beans. I’ve already been taking full advantage, simmering them by the potsful with herbs, garlic and olive oil (cover the shucked beans with salted water, add a few thyme sprigs, some smashed peeled garlic cloves, a drizzle of olive oil and simmer, covered, for 35 to 45 minutes). It’s a little disappointing to watch those pretty pink swirls fade away as they cook, but then their earthy, herby flavor more than makes up for the costume change.
Once the cranberry beans are gone for the year, I’ll console myself with canned cannellini beans, which, between you and me, are almost as good and don’t need shucking. Lidey Heuck’s braised white beans and greens is exactly the sort of recipe I love for canned beans. You let them bubble slowly with lots of olive oil and garlic, and then add hardy greens to turn them into a meal. Lidey finishes these beans with grated cheese for extra savoriness, but I could see stirring a few anchovies into the oil instead. Or give your white beans the full glam treatment and do both.
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Braised White Beans and Greens With Parmesan
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This past weekend I cooked my first sweet potatoes of the season, roasting them with what might be the last of the farmers’ market cherry tomatoes (though I buy cherry tomatoes all year long; even in winter they’re still pretty good). Another go-to option is to some add chicken like Yewande Komolafe does in her excellent sheet-pan chicken with sweet potatoes and fennel. The pungent vinaigrette made with pecorino and lemon lifts the sweet, caramelized flavors of the dish and makes everything pop.
Speaking of popping, a dash of sazón is the secret to Kristina Felix’s mushroom poblano tacos. This Puerto Rican seasoning mix (made with cumin, garlic, turmeric and other spices) is widely available to buy, but you can easily stir some together yourself with ingredients you might already have. In either case, a little sprinkle on the vegetables as they brown intensifies them and adds warm, complex notes. Roll this mushroom-pepper mix in tortillas for a satisfying meatless dinner, and then save the leftovers for your scrambled eggs the next morning.
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