I heard Chef Tom Douglas on the radio the other day and he described a pinto bean dish he made one time as part of a special at one of his restaurants. He said he fried the pinto beans in olive oil with garlic and the thought of the beans being fried whole but not mashed as when making refried beans made me want to develop something similar.
In wanting to hit more parts of the palate, I wanted to add the roasted tomatoes for some acidity, then complementary greens of some sort for color, then some soft goat cheese (chévre) because that’s always amazing in combination with roasted tomatoes. We ate this with some roasted chicken and slices of soft, buttered French bread. It tasted lovely piled on the bread, too.
Roasted Tomatoes and White Beans with Garlic and Greens
A simple but flavorful side dish with Italian herbs that comes together fairly quickly.
Ingredients
Roasted Tomatoes
- 2 cups grape tomatoes (sliced in half, lengthwise)
- 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
- scant tsp. Italian seasoning (to taste)
- scant tsp. garlic herb seasoning (to taste)
- scant tsp. sea salt (to taste)
- scant tsp. fresh ground black pepper (to taste)
Getting It Together
- 15 oz. can cannellini beans (or butter beans or chickpeas or other beans of your choice)
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium branch fresh rosemary
- 1/4 cup sliced garlic
- 1/2 tsp. Gochugaru pepper flakes (or crushed red pepper flakes)
- 1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper (to taste)
- 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt (to taste)
- 1 1/2 cups tightly packed and chopped baby spinach (or kale or other greens of your choice)
- 1/2 large lemon (more or less)
- 1 Tbsp. minced fresh basil
- 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh Italian flat leaf parsley
- 2 oz. crumbled soft goat cheese (to taste)
Instructions
Roasted Tomatoes
- On a lightly greased foil-lined half sheet pan, lay the tomatoes in a single layer, cut side up. Sprinkle with the dry seasonings of your choice and then drizzle with a very thin stream of olive oil. You may not use all of the oil.
- Roast at 425F for about 45 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through and using a spatula to loosen them a bit. Roast until they are reduced as you like, but I like them to have some moisture still in them. When they're halfway roasted, start the beans.
Getting It Together
- Drain the beans and rinse them, then set them aside to finish draining. Heat the 1/4 cup of oil in a large sauté pan over Medium heat. Add the garlic for one minute to give it a head start in browning a bit. Don't let it burn, though, we just want it to get golden brown when all is finished.
- Run a paper towel through the beans to remove the last of the moisture and add them and the rosemary to the sauté pan. Add the dry seasonings, including salt to taste, and fry the beans on Medium to Medium-High for about 5 to 10 minutes, stirring gently until they're as fried as you like. Add them to a serving dish and set them aside, discarding the rosemary. Keep the sauté pan handy but turn off the heat until the tomatoes are done.
- When the tomatoes are finished, you can finish the dish. In the sauté pan, turn the heat to Medium. Add the spinach and tomatoes, then squeeze in the juice of about half of a lemon, more or less, and add more salt and pepper to taste. Cook for just a minute or two, until greens are wilted as you like.
- Combine with beans in the serving dish and add the basil and parsley. Sprinkle with the goat cheese and serve.
Notes
You might choose to increase the beans and reduce the tomatoes in this dish, or simply add more greens. Dishes like these can change so much depending on which component you want to bring forward in volume. I prefer this dish a bit heavier on the tomato side due to the addition of the goat cheese. The main reason this dish comes together so quickly is because I used canned beans. However, if you have extra time, it’s great to use dried beans because you control the salt level and you have an opportunity to infuse garlic or herbs into your beans while they cook. This would also be great if you didn’t add the goat cheese to the dish but instead spread it over crostini and scooped the dish on top as an appetizer. Gochugaru pepper flakes are Korean pepper flakes and I use them in place of crushed red pepper flakes due to the absence of seeds. They’re a finely minced and vibrantly red chile flake.
