Loubia

Moroccan rabbit hole continues.  I needed a protein for a vegetable sheet pan dinner, so here we go with a seasoned bean stew.  I tossed the veggies with yet more of the green onion pesto, which ended up making a nice contrast to the light tomato sauce in the beans.

I'm changing a couple of things from many of the recipes I found, yet surprisingly keeping the grated tomato.  I don't do it often, but it's a neat trick to get around dirtying an appliance or peeling them.  Mainly, I'm not using three cans of beans for four servings.  They're kidding, right?  Let's just ignore what that would do to the digestive system.  A 15 oz can is commonly regarded as 3.5 servings in the U.S.  I'm having a side dish and bread with this, so I am perfectly happy with that estimation.

After some consideration, I decided to open a can of cannellini beans instead of making them from dry.  If this had been a day off, I would have done it the long way.  I bet you could also do this in a slow cooker or low oven, but since I wouldn't be home to check the water levels, I went for the 45 minute version.  I got the pot going, then chopped the veggies for roasting and started that, and everything finished at roughly the same time.

2 Tb olive oil
*1 small onion, finely diced or grated
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1/4 tsp pepper
*1 Tb tomato paste
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric or saffron
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Roma tomatoes (about 1/2 lb), grated
*1 can cannellini or white beans, drained, or 2/3 C dry beans, soaked and cooked
*1/4 C cilantro, chopped
1/4 C parsley, chopped

I rarely do a full mise en place, but there was a lot going on here

1.  If making the beans from dry, soak for 8-12 hours, drain, refill pot, simmer for 2 hours, drain.  Otherwise, start at step 2.

2.  Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Cook onion until softened but not browned, about 5 minutes.  Add spices, garlic, and tomato paste and cook until fragrant, 3 minutes.  This is where I'm deviating from all traditional recipes.  They all add the tomato paste at the end.  I'm using the Indian trick of cooking it with the spices to caramelize it.  If you want to be more authentic, add it later with the herbs.

3.  Add the beans and tomatoes to the pot.  If very dry, add water or vegetable broth until you can see it below the beans.  This isn't soup, so you don't have to cover them with liquid, but there should be a generous amount of sauce.  The light over my stove tends to make things look yellow, but this is pretty close to the actual color.  I'm assuming it was from the turmeric.  Cover and simmer 20 minutes.  If you want to add anything spicy like chili flakes or whole hot peppers, now is the time.  Or, you could serve this with harissa on the side and let everyone decide how hot they want it.

4.  Stir in cilantro and parsley, re-cover, and simmer another 10 minutes.  Serve hot in bowls, with more herbs for garnish.

Difficulty rating  :)