White bean stew with poached egg by 5 Element Cooking
The white bean stew with poached egg recipe will probably make you fall in love with beans. It is full of flavour and totally wholesome. According to the 5 Element Cooking Theory beans should be accompanied by a lot of oil. So be generous with oil (any kind of oil you like) in the recipe below.
There are countless white bean stew recipes. The 5 Element recipe below is a basic one. Therefore you can tweak it adding tomatoes, chorizo, kale, chicken, zucchini or bacon. The options are countless.
Tip
What you do not need to do in my 5 Element recipe is using stock. No need for extra flavours as the spice combination will do the job. Also, I would encourage you not to use canned beans either. Instead go for the amazing dried beans
The preparation
Soak 150g of the beans the night before. The following day drain them and set side.
The amount of beans will serve 2-3 people.
White bean stew – the procedure
In a large cooking pan add the following:
- Sweet 2-3 tablespoons of oil, 1 finely chopped shallot, a generous pinch of coarse cumin, fry until translucent and add the beans, stir them in and continue;
- Pungent 2 grated garlic cloves, a generous pinch of black pepper, a few chilli flakes, a generous pinch of freshly ground coriander,
- Salty 1 teaspoon of salt, cold water about 1 inch above the level of beans.
Bring to boil, turn the heat down and simmer for about 20-30 minutes, depending on how large your beans are, until soft. The beans need to go nicely mushy when you bite them. When bitten they fall into two parts that means they need more cooking.
Now continue with the other flavours:
- Sour 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, a generous pinch of chopped parsley,
- Bitter a pinch of turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon of thyme (dried or fresh), boiling water to cover the beans, if necessary.
To serve
In serving bowls, arrange a portion of white bean stew, sprinkle with some crumbled feta and chopped parsley and drizzle generously with some olive oil. Add poached egg on top and garnish with parsley and freshly ground black pepper. You might want to have the stew with a slice of bread but for me the bowl was good in itself.
Also, check out the runner bean recipe.
