2012 Cooking Club Week 19: Beans on Toast ;)

Darkginger

Sorry if this is a little late, but it's been one of those weekends - anyway - here we go - beans 'on' toast (some poetic licence there). My husband thinks this is possibly the most drawn-out, complex recipe he has ever seen for beans on toast, but I think the result is worth it, plus there's not much work involved, just cooking time.

I apologise for the mix of imperial, metric and American measures, but it's how I do it!

To begin - you need beans. I used cannellini beans, but if you have a favourite bean you'd rather use, I'm sure it would work. These need soaking overnight - just put them in a pan, cover with water, put a lid on it and go to bed.

SPICY BAKED BEANS

Ingredients 4 servings:

1 cup beans - soaked overnight
1 onion
1/2lb bacon (green or smoked, depending on your preference)
2 tablespoons Black Treacle
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar (see pic for how dark)
1 tsp Colman's English Mustard powder
2 tablespoons Worcs. sauce
1 or 2 teaspoons of Sriracha sauce (more if you like it spicy)
3 tablespoons ketchup
Salt and pepper

The morning after soaking the beans, bring them to the boil in the same water they soaked in, and simmer for about an hour. Skim off any scum that rises, and top up with water if they seem to be using it up. Drain the beans - and RESERVE THE WATER (something I forgot to do on Saturday, when I made this).

Heat your oven to 160 degrees.

Chop the bacon into cubes, and the onion into pieces, not too small - see pic. Layer the beans, bacon and onion in an ovenproof dish which has a lid.

Put the rest of the ingredients into a small pan, and heat until all blended together. Pour this over the bean mixture, and then use the reserved bean water to just cover the contents of the dish. Put the lid on, and then into the oven for 4 hours.

Now we move on to the toast - which is actually treacle bread. I was looking for something else to do with treacle and dark brown sugar (because I don't cook this very often) and came up with the idea of using them in bread to go with it. It's a fairly sweet bread, but I think that, with butter on, it complements the beans nicely. Let me know what you think!

TREACLE TOAST

1/2lb plain white (cream) flour
1/2 lb wholemeal flour
1tsp bread soda
1tsp Cream of Tartar
A good pinch of salt
1/2 pint milk
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons treacle

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Melt the sugar and treacle in the milk over a low heat, and then add the liquid bit by bit to the dry ingredients, stirring until you have a fairly dry dough (you may not use all the liquid). Bring the dough together, take it out of the bowl and form into a vague loaf shape. Make a couple of slashes across the top, and bake for 45 mins at 200 degrees.

Cover the bread as it cools, otherwise you might find the crust a bit too hard. Once the beans are cooked (give them a stir maybe halfway through the cooking time), take them out of the oven. Slice the bread, toast it, spread it with butter and serve beside the beans. You could actually put the beans on top, but it just looked more elegant (cough) side by side!

BEANS!


Ready to eat

There's an almost sweet 'n sour quality to this dish, I think, so if you're not a fan of S'nS, you may not like it. Chiliheads could add quite a lot more Sriracha, or maybe some chilli powder. Anyway, hope someone tries it and likes it Good luck!

littlehedgehog

One of THE most interesting recipes I've seen on Cooking Club - kudos!

Susie_Q

I love the look of this - thanks for sharing!

Loopy

Fantastic post OP..
I thought I was going to see this:



and this:

sponge_bob

^^^ LOL me too:D

The Black Oil

This looks bloody brilliant. Love the pictures and arrows.

The Black Oil

The Black Oil wrote: »

This looks bloody brilliant. Love the pictures and arrows.

Exactly this, I read the first post like this :eek:. Looks amazing OP, and fair play for all the effort in the pictures.

Chong

xo.mary

hey OP, where did you get Sriracha sauce? I've been looking everywhere for it!

Darkginger

I bought the Sriracha from eBay - grimacing at the postage charges from the UK - but figured it's a big bottle, and will last a long time, so worth it!

Tom BJJ

Made this yesterday, or should i say my gf did. Almost six hour cooking time, but well worth the wait. The bread unlike anything i've ever tasted, delicious. Thank you!!

Darkginger

Oh brilliant! Delighted you (or your GF!) tried it and liked it Thanks for the pic, too!

Little Alex

I agree that this is a lovely recipe. The photos are really cool. Nice one!

I had it for breakfast this morning!



I made it without the bacon and with Yorkshire Relish instead of Worcester sauce.

Darkginger

Glad you enjoyed it - did you have to add much salt to compensate for the lack of bacon? I must try it with Yorkshire Relish - that sounds like it would work well. Thanks so much for reporting back, and sharing the pic

John Mason

we are having this tomorrow night.

I didnt read the recipe the whole way through, made the bread and everything and then got the 4 hours in the oven - d'oh

at least dinner is made for tomorrow night

John Mason

Finally, got to have this for dinner tonight.

It was wonderful, will definitely make again. the bread was wonderful:)

_blank_

^^ was absolutely delicious OP

Thanks very much for the recipe.

Darkginger

Really happy that you both enjoyed it! Next time I make it, I'm going to use a pressure cooker and see how much I can reduce the cooking time by. I know it doesn't take much effort to just let it sit in the oven for 4 hours, but it does take a bit of planning ahead - so speeding up the process would be good! I'll post my results here