Elawin
Guru
(also called fasolada, fassolatha, fassolada, or φασολάδα)
Ingredients
1 lb dried beans
3 quarts water
Celery to taste
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 large onions
2 large chopped carrots
Handful chopped parsley
½ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Soak the beans overnight, then rinse them thoroughly in a colander under running water. Put them into a pan with the 3 quarts of water and bring to the boil. Throw away this water, add the same quantity again, bring once more to the boil, reduce the heat, add the remaining ingredients and continue to cook slowly until the beans are very soft.
Some Greek cooks prefer to rub the soup through a sieve, others are emphatic that this is not necessary. The beans, they insist, should be soft but whole.
Fasolatha is the national dish of Greece – it is also considered to be a poor man’s dish since beans are very cheap. In the homes of the lesser income groups it is served as often as three times a week.
Recipe from Greek Cooking by Robin Howe, published by Andre Deutsch Limited, 1960 and distributed by The American Book & News Agency, Athens.
Notes
Whenever I have eaten or cooked this, either in Greece, Germany or the UK, the beans used have always been the large, dried beans known in the UK as butter beans and in other places as Lima beans.
Photo by Howard F. Schwartz, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org
I have never used celery or salt in it (owing to allergies/intolerances) and never ever rubbed it through a sieve!
Ingredients
1 lb dried beans
3 quarts water
Celery to taste
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 large onions
2 large chopped carrots
Handful chopped parsley
½ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Soak the beans overnight, then rinse them thoroughly in a colander under running water. Put them into a pan with the 3 quarts of water and bring to the boil. Throw away this water, add the same quantity again, bring once more to the boil, reduce the heat, add the remaining ingredients and continue to cook slowly until the beans are very soft.
Some Greek cooks prefer to rub the soup through a sieve, others are emphatic that this is not necessary. The beans, they insist, should be soft but whole.
Fasolatha is the national dish of Greece – it is also considered to be a poor man’s dish since beans are very cheap. In the homes of the lesser income groups it is served as often as three times a week.
Recipe from Greek Cooking by Robin Howe, published by Andre Deutsch Limited, 1960 and distributed by The American Book & News Agency, Athens.
Notes
Whenever I have eaten or cooked this, either in Greece, Germany or the UK, the beans used have always been the large, dried beans known in the UK as butter beans and in other places as Lima beans.
Photo by Howard F. Schwartz, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org
I have never used celery or salt in it (owing to allergies/intolerances) and never ever rubbed it through a sieve!