Legumes and grains

I've always liked legumes and grains but usually haven't been organized enough to plan ahead for putting them into soak the night before or whatever else it takes. This year, perhaps because of all the rainy weather, has been different, and I've been able to indulge in a number of scrumptious dishes with beans and other legumes. They are nourishing and warming on a dreary day, and make great leftovers.

Farro is a type of hulled wheat grain similar to spelt and wheatberries that Domenica Marchetti, in her Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy, says has made a comeback in Italy in the past decade. I fixed her lamb and green bean stew with farro and it was delicious. You sear the lamb cubes, add onions and garlic till soft, put in some wine and evaporate it, then put in chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, green beans and farro and let it simmer for a couple of hours to make a rich soupy stew that has plenty of body from the meat, beans and grain.

Simple navy beans were all I used in a Turkish bean stew with pastirma from Real Stew by Clifford Wright. Pastirma, often called bastirma, is a Middle Eastern deli meat that is a cured filet of beef rubbed with spices (our word pastrami comes from the same root, though pastrami is different than bastirma). After calling around, I found bastirma at Asadur's, an ethnic grocery off Rockville Pike just past White Flint, and made the trek out there to get 5 ounces for the stew. It's an essential ingredient because the spicy meat gives up its flavor to the beans. You soak and cook the beans and then put them in a pot where you've softened onions and garlic then tomatoes and green peppers in butter. You cook for half an hour, then add the bastirma and cook another 20 minutes. It is a rich, satisfying stew that truly did improve with reheating as the flavors blended and the sauce thickened.

Less successful was the Tepary bean and summer vegetable stew from Steve Sando's Heirloom Beans cookbook. The tepary beans remained too crunchy and the zucchini just became limp and watery in the stew. A bean chowder with smoked chicken, sweet potatoes and sage was better, but not so yummy I'd repeat it in a hurry. I used black calypso beans and smoked a chicken in the Big Green Egg earlier in the week when I was firing up the grill for another meal. So the jury is still out on his recipes. I suspect he does not test them as rigorously as some other cookbook authors. The best recipe I've seen from him is actually one he took from another book -- a really nice chickpea stew from Turquoise by Greg and Lucy Malouf.

Yesterday I fixed a petit salé with lentils from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France. This involved brining a 2-lb boneless pork shoulder in a brine of salt, sugar, juniper berries, thyme sprigs, peppercorns, bay leaf, whole cloves, and sliced garlic overnight, then poaching the tied pork just in water, adding a bouquet garni, an onion with two cloves and the French lentils near the end of the poaching. It was very much as I remember it from ordering it often in French bistros -- a great winter comfort food.

So I'm likely to continue on this kick for a while. Risottos are next.