Who doesn’t love an easy meal you can whip up after a long day with ingredients you already have in your kitchen? This saucy, comforting bean dish stew is just that. In a world where beans become brownies, pastas, and burgers, serving them whole with a pasta sauce feels rebellious. And don’t skip the garlic-rubbed toast! It really ties everything together. Whether you’re sharing this or not, I love making a whole batch. The simmered leftovers topped with a fried egg are really something to look forward to the next day.
I wouldn’t like to say how often this is my supper and, indeed, lunch the next day when I eat it cold with a sprinkling of capers. For, although it does indeed serve two, I love it too much to keep it for company. It is, frankly, absurd how quick and easy it is to make. And yet it has such depth and complexity of flavor: the squid brings with it the briny kiss of the sea; the smokiness of the paprika, the heat of the chile and the hit of the garlic give it a gutsiness that marries so well with the smooth, creamy beans. I adore the Spanish judión beans, which are soft, thin-skinned, extra-large butter beans, though you can, of course, use regular canned butter beans, or soak and cook dried butter beans yourself.
A hearty, comforting dish full of saucy, tomato-laden beans, salty cheese, and crisp bread crumbs.
A long with muscadine grapes, butter beans are among the farmer's market treasures of late summer in Charleston—reason to wake up with gusto to another day of stultifying heat and oxford-soaking humidity. We do all kinds of things with butter beans: we make a hummus-like spread for the cocktail hour, we simmer them with seasoning meats of all sorts, and we compose marinated salads aplenty. But this may be our most simple treatment yet, and one of the most satisfying.