ChezHoff’s White Bean Stew w/ Toasted Bread Crumbs

This is one of the favorite side dishes at our house and amongst our family and friends. Like most things I make it is easily adaptable – you can add different ingredients, leave things out, etc. It’s also a great main course and can be made vegetarian (or even vegan – which is a bit outside my norm!)

Ingredients

• I large yellow onion, diced (optional if your initials are JS)
• 2-4 (depending on your taste) cloves of garlic, minced
• 4 slices of bacon (or a similar amount of pancetta, nduja, guanciale, salami, etc) (optional)
• 3 – 14 oz cans of any kind of white beans (cannellini, great northern, etc.), drained and rinsed
• 2 – 14 oz cans of diced fire-roasted tomatoes drained, juice reserved
• Olive oil, as needed
• ½ c white wine
• 2-3 cups of low sodium chicken broth
• Pinch of red pepper flakes
• 1 T. dried thyme (rosemary would be fine too)
• 8 cups (ish) of Kale, Spinach, Arugula, Chard – something green and bitter (optional)
• 1 c panko bread crumbs
• Zest of one lemon
• 1 c parsley, minced
• S&P

Directions

• Cook bacon in a large dutch oven (you know, a pot) until crisp, remove, saving fat
  • If you’re using another meat, sauté it for a couple of minutes in olive oil
• Chop bacon and save it (snacking on some of it is totally understandable)
• Sauté onion in the bacon fat over medium heat, adding olive oil as needed (or just cause you want to), 4-5 minutes until golden brown(ish) and soft
• Now would be a good time to add some salt – maybe ½ teaspoon of Kosher
• Add garlic and sauté another 2-3 minutes
• Add tomatoes and – you guessed it, saute another 3-4 minutes. Stir a lot to prevent burning
• Add the red pepper flakes and thyme
• Add the reserved tomato juice, bacon, white wine, and broth
• Add the beans and cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes – you want everything hot and bubbly
• Put about ¼(ish) of the bean and broth mixture into a blender and blend (leave the lid slightly ajar and put a towel over the damn thing when you turn it on unless you enjoy being covered in lava hot beans and broth. Add more broth to form a smooth puree
  • You want this really smooth. Would be good if you had a Vitamix (the only blender worth having – they’ll outlast 3-4 cheap blenders and do a better job. They’re expensive but you can save money by getting a refurbished one from the Vitamix web site)
• Add the pureed beans back into the pot and cook (keep stirring) until they reach your desired consistency – maybe another 10 minutes, this is up to you
• Add the kale and cook until softened
• Stir in ½ of the parsley (a little more olive oil would be good too)
• Adjust salt and pepper as needed
• Meanwhile…you can do this next bit while the beans are cooking:
  • Heat a large non-stick skilled over medium heat
  • Add 2 T of olive oil and heat for a minute
  • Add the panko and sauté until GBD (golden brown and delicious)
  • You’ll need to stir these a lot – watch them, they can burn quickly (don’t ask me how I know this)
  • Once GBD, remove from the heat and stir in the remaining parsley and lemon zest  
• Serving
  • This can be a main dish or a side (it’s particularly good with pork) (or with prosciutto wrapped cod)
  • Serve topped with the breadcrumbs and drizzled with (good) olive oil
  • A little parmesan or other hard (Italian – don’t buy the American crap…we make some amazing cheese here but the knockoffs of Parm and such suck. A lot) cheese would be just fine too