My friend P is married to a Greek man and produced the authentic version of this wonderful dish at a party recently. My version is less authentic, as I used cannellini beans, but if you can get proper Greek Giant beans (I haven't seen them dried here, only butter beans, which are not the same thing at all!), then so much the better. I think this would have been even nicer had the ratio of beans to passata been higher, but I'm certainly not complaining!
About 3/4 cup by volume (c 180 g) of dried cannellini beans. Or perhaps 250 ml (1 cup by volume) would be even better.
1 large carrot
1 red onion
1 carton passata (sieved tomatoes)
1 tbs olive oil
Seasoning - salt, pepper, garlic flakes (or use fresh garlic, but it's not in season just now and what is available isn't very nice, so I'm on the dried for now!), maybe a dash of soya sauce...
Soak the cannellini beans in water overnight. Next morning, drain, rinse, and cook with fresh water in a pressure cooker for about 10 minutes. Drain again, and place in the bowl of a slow cooker. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir well, and leave to cook on auto until dinner time. Fabulous! I served this with mushrooms and new potatoes, and left-overs (there are a couple of spoonfuls) will go to pad out tomorrow night's mince.
