Recipe Greek Inspired Butter Beans with Capers and Caper Leaves

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

This is a vegan tomato-based stew, caper yiachni is made with stewed with garlic, onions, tomatoes and caper leaves. I started with the recipe from www.thepeppercook.com/2017/12/02/inspired-by-greece/ and modified it to our tastes (mostly by doubling the herbs and spices). Plus because I couldn't find lima beans anywhere, we ended up using white beans which were much smaller, so my cooking time needed adjusting.

Recipe - Greek Inspired Butter Beans with Capers and Caper Leaves

• SatNavSaysStraightOn
• 7 Jun 2023

Serves: 4-6 as a main meal with protein pasta or rice.

Ingredients
200g Butter beans (/Great Northern/Lima beans)
Water
8-10 cloves garlic, minced (3 tbsp)
2 medium onions or 1 very large onion, finely chopped
3×250g can of crushed/diced tomatoes
1 tsp paprika powder
1 tsp crushed chilies (or to taste)
1 tsp sugar
100g capers
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp rosemary
½-1 freshly ground black pepper
9-10 caper leaves (soaked for a few hours)
5 tbsp flat parsley, finely chopped
100ml olive oil

Method

1. Soak the beans overnight in plenty of water. Gently rub the beans together to remove what skins you can, remove those that do come off from the soaking vessel. Note, skinning is only feasible with larger beans, so if you're using small white beans, I suggest you pass on this stage.
2. Put the beans into a large saucepan. Add clean water (no salt) until the beans are covered by at least 2 cm of extra water and bring to the boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low and allow the butter beans to simmer for 40 to 60 minutes until tender. Drain the beans and retain the cooking water to thin the sauce later on.
3. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the garlic and fry for about a minute but don't brown. Add the onion and fry until translucent.
4. Now add the boiled butter/lima beans, tinned tomatoes, paprika, crushed chilies, sugar and capers and bring to boil. (Again, don't add salt yet. Capers are heavily salted, so you'll need to add no salt until the very end, if at all. We didn't add any, only pepper.) Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the tomatoes have softened and become sauce-like.
5. Add thyme, rosemary (crush in a pestle and mortar) and black pepper, and the chopped caper leaves (if using) plus 4 tablespoons of the parsley. If tomato sauce dries, add 100ml of the bean cooking water to thin. Allow beans to cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Garnish with remaining parsley and serve with rice or pasta.

Recipe - Greek Inspired Butter Beans with Capers and Caper Leaves

• SatNavSaysStraightOn
• 7 Jun 2023

The observant may notice that I entirely forgot the parsley. Sorry!

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

This is a terrific twist on boring bean dishes. In addition to the uses you've shown, I can easily see this as a side dish.

 

[Herbaceous]

I would love this dish. I don’t know if caper leaves are available here, so I’ll have to go hunting and see if I can find them!