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Roasted Shallots on Slow-Cooked Butter Beans

Why use five shallots where a single onion will do? You, like me, might have disregarded shallots as that tedious member of the onion family that is just too small to bother with. But what they lack in size, they give back in flavour.
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Active Time 5 minutes
Course Side Dish
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

For the shallots & beans

  • 300 g butter beans
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 750 g shallots
  • 75 ml extra virgin olive oil
  • 10 g thyme
  • 10 g tarragon
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar

For the tarragon oil

  • 30 g tarragon
  • 100 ml olive oil

Instructions
 

  • Soak the beans beans overnight.
  • The next day, pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees. Drain the beans and add to a pan with 8g salt, the bay leaf, 4 tbsp olive oil and 750 ml water. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered for 45 minutes.
  • Trim and peel the shallots. Add to a roasting tray along with the olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt. Form two herb bundles out of the thyme and tarragon and place on top of the shallots. Cover with foil and roast for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and the herbs, baste the shallots with the juices, then return to the oven for another 30 minutes or until the shallots are golden.
  • In the meantime, in a large frying pan, fry the garlic until aromatic. Then add the beans along with their liquor. Simmer until the water has evaporated and the beans are creamy, around 30 minutes.
  • For the tarragon oil, blanch the leaves of the tarragon for 10 seconds in salted water. Drain them and shock immediately in ice water. Then squeeze out as much liquid as possible and blitz with the olive oil. Pour into a fine sieve and let it filter completely without squeezing it through.
  • Remove the shallots from the oven and blend a quarter of them with the roasting liquid and the vinegar, keeping the remaining shallots in the oven to stay warm.
  • Plate the beans, top them with the shallot sauce, then add the roasted shallots, a drizzle of the tarragon oil and a few more tarragon leaves.

Notes

You can also use 2x tins of butter beans and their liquid instead of dried ones. Simply start with Step 4 for the beans.
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