The tin of baked beans is one of the great kitchen crutches, and I’ve got no beef with it on a busy morning. But once you’ve made your own, that pull-tab version starts to taste of the factory it came from. Smoky baked beans built from dried cannellini, roasted garlic and good passata are a different animal entirely.
This is one I cook on the flat-top when we’ve got a full house at breakfast. The trick people miss is the smoked paprika. It does the heavy lifting here, standing in for the bacon fat and molasses that supermarket beans lean on, and it gives you that low, warm smoke without a scrap of meat in the pot.
Top it with a soft poached egg and you’ve got a plate that carries you through to lunch. Here’s how we do it in the Golden Door kitchen.
Ingredients
Serves 6
- 1 whole head of garlic (you will only use 2 cloves in this recipe)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 300 grams dried cannellini beans
- 1 carrot chopped into small dice
- 1 onion brown chopped into small dice
- 2 stalks of celery, finely diced
- 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 2 cups of passata
- 100 g chopped kale or spinach
- 1 tablespoon of combined fresh herbs i.e. basil parsley chives
- 6 eggs
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
Method
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
- Sit the whole head of garlic in square of foil, drizzle with oil and enclose in the foil. Roast for 30-40 minutes or until cloves are very soft when pressed. Allow to cool, then squeeze out the flesh of 2 cloves and mash with a fork. Store the rest in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week.
- Cook beans as per packet instructions. Drain.
- Place carrot, onion and celery in a saucepan and sauté in about 3 tablespoons of water over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add thyme, garlic and paprika and continue cooking for 5-6 minutes or until vegetables are tender but still have a bit of bite. If mix appears too dry add a little more water. Stir in cooked beans and tomato sauce. Add kale and herbs and reheat gently.
- To poach the eggs, fill a stainless steel frying pan with water, add a splash of white vinegar and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a simmer. Stir water, crack an egg into a ramekin then slowly pour egg into the simmering water. Cook for approximately 3 minutes. Cook 2-3 eggs at a time. Lift eggs out using a slotted spoon and set aside on a paper towel-lined plate.
- Place an egg on top of the beans and serve.
Serves 6.
Getting ahead and making it your own
The beans themselves are the make-ahead hero. Cook the whole lot a day or two out and keep it in the fridge, then all you’re doing in the morning is reheating and poaching. The flavour actually settles and improves overnight, so I’ll happily make a double batch on a Sunday and work through it during the week. It freezes well too, portioned into containers.
Room to move on the veg. Cannellini are creamy and mild, but borlotti or great northern beans stand in fine. A diced red capsicum roasted alongside the garlic adds sweetness, and a pinch of chilli flakes lifts the smoke if you like a bit of heat. The kale can be swapped for silverbeet or spinach depending on what looks good at the market.
If poaching eggs makes you nervous, the vinegar and the fresh-as-possible egg are your two best mates. An older egg spreads into a mess of white threads. When I want something lower-fuss for a crowd I’ll bake the eggs straight into wells in the warm beans instead, lid on, until the whites just set. For more on where eggs and legumes sit in a balanced plate, the folks at Nutrition Australia lay it out plainly. Serve with a slab of sourdough or alongside a feta, sweet potato and eggplant frittata if you’re feeding a big table. Chase it with a green smoothie bowl and you’ve covered a fair bit of ground before nine o’clock.
One last thing, and I’ll die on this hill: don’t rush the garlic. Underdone roasted garlic is sharp and does the dish no favours, so let it go until the cloves are properly soft and jammy. That’s where the real depth comes from. For a bit of reading on why legumes earn their spot at breakfast, Better Health Channel is worth a look.
– Dave Forsythe, Golden Door Living kitchen
