Today’s dish is a stew with dry white beans.
The meat in the stew is beef and pork.
I dice the meat and brown it with olive oil.
In the same pan I then put sliced green peppers, onions, parsley and celery.
I put the peppers alone at first, and then add the other ingredients.
While all of this is taking place, dry white beans from the northern city of Drama are boiling in water.
When the peppers, and onions are soft, I add the meat and half a bottle of good red wine, some slat, pepper and cover the pot. The meat must now cook in medium to low heat for at least one hour.
While the meat is slowly cooking, I put half of the beans in a mixer and puree them. I spread them in a baking tray with olive oil.
On top I add the rest of the beans, and spread them evenly. I add a lot of juice from the stew and bake for one hour in 200 degrees centigrade. To avoid dehydration of the beans, in the first thirty minutes cover the tray with aluminum foil.
To serve, cut a rectangle of the beans and serve the meat next to it.
What I really like about the dish is the combination of textures in the beans, accompanied by the aromas of the meat stew.
The particular beans I used in the dish are strong in flavor, almost to the point of the bean paste tasting like chestnuts! To accompany the dish, as a matter of fact to announce it, I prepared zucchini rolls with pastirma. Easy peasyFry sliced zucchini in olive oil and dry in kitchen paper.
Slice pastirma very thinly. To avoid overpowering the zucchini with the pastirma, cut the slices very thin and short.
Take a zucchini slice, add some pastirma, about one third of its length should be covered by the pastirma slice, roll it up and let it rest on the serving dish.
These little bites are dynamite! I was quite surprised by the harmonious collaboration of the gentle soft and almost unspoken zucchini with the explosive pastirma!
And do not forget a good red wine to accompany the dish, I would recommend a Xinomavro from Northern Greece.
Salve!