Yellow Indian Woman bean salad

I was looking for a recipe to use up the half-pound of Yellow Indian Woman beans from Rancho Gordo when I came upon this Moroccan-inspired salad in Heirloom Beans. It seemed the perfect follow-up to our chicken tagine earlier in the week because it used up the other half of the preserved lemon as well as using some of the newly opened jar of harissa paste.

It turned out to be delicious. And it was a stroke of genius, I say in all modesty, to pair the salad with grilled merguez from Broad Branch Market.

Steve Sando's beans once again proved their worth. I soaked these overnight then cooked them with a mirepoix. In order to use the bean pot, I sautéed the mirepoix in olive oil in a skillet and added it to the cold beans and soaking water to heat up gradually in the clay pot. It took a good hour or so to come to a boil and then simmered for another good hour. I added a tsp salt in the last quarter-hour of cooking then drained the beans. Per Sando's instructions, I heated up the 2 c. beans in the microwave at the time of assembly.

The other essential ingredient in this salad was 1 c. bulgur wheat. You simply add 2 c. boiling water and let it sit for an hour. The grain absorbs all the water, but remains moist and you fluff it up with a fork. It looks a lot like couscous but has a different, wheatier flavor.

Other ingredients were 2 Tbl chopped preserved lemon, 1/3 c. chopped scallions, and 1 c. chopped parsley. The dressing was 1/4 c. lemon juice, 3 minced garlic cloves, 2 tsp harissa, 1/3 c. olive oil and salt and pepper. You put the salad ingredients in a bowl, pour over the whisked dressing and toss to make a healthy, well-balanced salad.

The merguez was great, though it created huge flames on the grill as the fat escaped. I also put on a couple of the thicker sweet Italian sausages from Broad Branch but the merguez really matched the salad best. We drank a Gruner Veltliner with it, though I think a red would have been a better match.

Bean salad

Beans aren't only for cold weather, as these lovely salads in Steve Sando's Heirloom Beans demonstrate (see my blog from last year on these beans). I forgot the volume that a pound of dried beans swells into, so I had a chance to try three salads in quick succession when I cooked up a pound of Rancho Gordo's Mayacoba beans.

I cooked the beans per Sando's instructions with a mirepoix (one carrot, one celery and half an onion) and a crushed garlic. After soaking overnight, they only required a little over an hour to get soft. Sando encourages you to make the salads with the beans slightly warmed so I brought them to room temperature and briefly warmed them in a skillet with a couple tablespoons water in it before making each salad.

With a cup and a half of the cooked beans, I made the Fennel and Radicchio with Mayacoba bean salad. Two fennel bulbs sliced lengthwise are tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and sautéed until golden brown and soft. These are mixed with sliced radicchio, 6 slices of bacon fried and crumbled and the beans and tossed in a dressing of 1/2 chopped shallot, 1 tsp. dijon mustard, 1 Tbl. fresh lemon juice, 1 Tbl. red wine vinegar and 4 Tbl. EVOO. Shaved parmesan is added to the tossed salad. (Sando's recipe also includes hazelnuts roasted and rubbed to remove the skin, then chopped -- but I omitted these. He calls for radicchio di Treviso, but I had to make do with California radicchio and it still tasted excellent.)

With another two cups of the cooked beans, I made the Mayacoba bean salad with pesto and shrimp. A half pound of medium shrimp are peeled and deveined and then cooked 30 seconds in a court bouillon of 1 bay leaf, 1/4 tsp. fennel seads, 1/4 tsp. coriander seeds, 4 to 5 peppercorns, 1 crushed garlic clove, a 1/3 c. dry white wine, 1/2 lemon, and 1/2 tsp salt simmered in a small saucepan of water for 10 min. The pesto, which expressly omits the usual parmesan and pine nuts, is made from 2 c. loosely packed fresh basil leaves, 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/3 c. EVOO processed in a food processor. To assemble, toss the beans and shrimp together with 1 c. cherry or grape tomatoes cut in half, pour over the pesto and toss again, then season with salt, pepper and the juice of 1/2 lemon. Very tasty.

With the remaining 2-1/2 c. of Mayacoba beans I made the Italian marrow bean with tuna salad, a variation on a standard Mediterranean dish. Sando specifies that you use imported tuna packed in oil (standard 5 oz. can). You break this up with a fork in a salad bowl, add the beans, 1/2 thinly sliced medium sweet onion, 1 celery stalk half lengthwise then sliced on the diagonal, 1/3 c. chopped fresh parsley, and then drizzle with 3 Tbl EVOO, 2 tsp red wine vinegar, and toss with salt and pepper.

Believe it or not, I didn't get tired of beans. Each salad is so different and has such a nice balance of flavors, you forget that they're all made from the same batch of beans.

Rancho Gordo heirloom beans

Steve Sando has cultivated a number of native bean varieties and sells them online at his Web site.

He has an astounding variety that run about $5 for a 1-lb. package. We order about half a dozen varieties each shipment.

These are dried beans, but very fresh, so it's usually enough to soak them the same day for four to six hours before cooking. Sando suggests cooking them together with a mirepoix to start the flavoring process.

Beans are a healthy vegetable protein that hot or cold can absorb many wonderful flavors. Sando also has a Heirloom Beans cookbook and as part of our Labor Day Colombian barbecue (see separate post) we made his three-bean salad. It was delicious, bursting with flavor, and well-suited to the flank steak and chile sauces.

Any bean that stays firm when cooked can be used (he suggests a number of them). We used a half-pound each of yellow Indian woman, cranberry and flageolet beans.

We cooked the beans separately with mirepoix. In a 400-degree oven, you roast plum tomatoes from a 14-oz. can, drained and drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, until they start to brown and caramelize, about 20 min.

Meanwhile, you saute 1/4-lb. diced pancetta until golden, about 8 to 10 min., then drain on paper towels.

You chop the roasted tomatoes and put them in a large salad bowl. You add 3 celery stalks, cut in half lengthwise and then on the diagonal into 1/4-inch thick slices; one small sweet onion cut into quarters and then thinly sliced; 1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley; and the cooked beans, still a bit warm.

For the dressing you whisk together 2 finely chopped garlic cloves, 1/4 tsp. dried oregano, 1/4 tsp. dried thyme, 1 tsp. Dijon mustard, 3 Tbl. red wine vinegar, and then drizzle 1/2 c. EVOO in while whisking to form the emulsion, add salt and pepper. Toss the salad with the dressing, check salt and pepper and serve.