The last of last weeks lovely summer hummer salads. This was my fave, although I think that we added a little too much of the old purple onion for most peeps, so watch that.

Segmenting the orange was a strange experience that you would think is easy, but again like most of these things is “easy once you know how”, I’ll wait for Pat to add this as a tip. Suffice to say we used an orange or two more than we should whilst learning this one.

citrus butter beans, close up

Ingredients

  • 1/2 to 1 red onion - finely chopped
  • Olive oil
  • 7 sprigs of Thyme
  • Salt & Pepper
  • 4 Oranges
  • 1 Lemon
  • 2 Fistfulls of butter beans - dried not tinned

I love this one, it makes me feel healthy just thinking about it. Ere, it’s got fruit in it, it must be.

Anyway, let’s get on it.

Soak the butter beans over night in a cool place, in plenty of water. Next day drain them off and stick in a pan with fresh cold water, add a punch of salt and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15-20 minutes (or whatever the packet says), they need to be “soft yet firm”, apparently plastic surgeons hear that all the time.

Drain and cool. The left over stock is great for veggie stew and tastes remarkably meaty.

Segment the orange. Sounds easy… This took me ages and frankly I think I need more practice. Essentially you cut the orange in half, slice off the skin and then “cut out” the segments from the pith… I’ll try and get Pat to do a proper tip on this one.

Once the beans are cool, plop in a bowl, squeeze over the lemon, fully wring it out. Drop in the orange segments (best to cut them in half first), don’t waste any of the orange that you haven’t cut out, wring out the juice from that as well.

Add the chopped onion, we added the whole onion, but I think for most people a half is enough, we like things strong, I imagine that we are a bit pervy with tastes. Add the thyme, don’t add the twigs(!) strip off the leaves, mix it and then add 4 seconds of olive oil (slow pourer of course). Mix everything up and add salt and pepper to taste.

citrus butter beans

I suppose that you could use tinned beans, but I kind of like creating things that we can use later in other recipes. The stock looked good and Pat says that “in a veggie stew” it rocks. I’m starting to get the idea that good food doesn’t need to be expensive. It’s a bit like connecting the dots, one thing leads to another…