Farmyard lunches
A friend once asked for my Shepherd’s Pie recipe and I said he could have it if he found a new subscriber for Sam’s Good Stuff. After four months (!) of asking friends, family and eventually employing a call centre in India to make cold calls, he got me one and so I’d like to give a huge welcome to this new joiner in our good stuff brigade.
I’ve sent the friend my recipe privately and would like you all to know I am open to other such similar negotiations. We can think creatively about the exchange too; more than recipes, I could offer love sonnets, personalised dances on TikTok, a handjob round the back of Lidl carpark in Peckham, and so forth.
Get in touch and let’s make it happen.
I have some friends who are great purveyors of quality.
So great in fact is their purveyance of quality that they made a business of it and created the greatest place in the world; Coombeshead Farm.
Such a giddy compliment may seem like I am on their payroll today, but I assure you this is a genuinely felt statement. It is born only from love, and the usual half bottle of wine it takes me to get in front of the computer and begin writing this thing.
I hope you will trust the taste in the statement too, as it does of course come from the purveyor of good stuff that is myself, even if I did just write this sentence while picking a bogey and putting it in an empty crisps bowl, and then forgetting about said act, and trying to then eat the bogey mistaking it for a crisp crumb.
It happens to the best of us.
I digress, because look everyone the thing I need to tell you is that four of the happiest months in my life were once spent on that farm. I picked berries, made custard, drove tractors, ran on top of hay-bails like a clown peddling on top of a circling watermill and all the while ate the best I ever have in my life.
This was all no less on the back of returning from my long gastronomical affair in Italy, where then in my ignorance I’d dismissed our own cuisine and thought I would never love again.
But I loved again, and quickly so, and maybe more so than I had before because this farm I had found was in the country where I grew up.
I would wax lyrical longer, but the question beckons why wax today? I’ve just returned from a small holiday there and am still feeling the effects of having been filled again with good wine, good food and great company.
In many ways the connection to food I could not find in Sicily is what I find every time at Coombeshead Farm in abundance. We ate casual country lunches together, revolving round the kind of easy baking that depends on quality of produce and confidence in letting it speak for itself. We had cabbages from the vegetable patch with home cured bacon from the pigs, their own chicken roasted and flavoured with herbs from the garden, beans and pasties and crumbles and all washed down with wine far more exquisite than I am accustomed to.
I once read in the trendy wine publication Noble Rot to always be generous with your friends and buy good wine. I’ve always meant to get round to it, but often end up splurging so much on the meal that spending any further on wine seems a painful prospect.
Our first lunch on the farm shifted my perspective. We had a tumble of leftover vegetables and beans that combined with some excellent bread, oil and aioli made a good meal. Our hosts then cracked out an outstanding Chardonnay and the food sudden became more something to wash the wine down than vice versa.
Like in the non-binary cook where we saw a good pud could be the main event of a dinner, at the farm I watched (and greatly enjoyed) how wine would often take that place. The recipe today is a nod to that first meal and is for a cheap (but very good) butter bean stew fit to make a fine lunch, though one all the finer if made to play supporting role to a generously provisioned wine.
Braised Butter Beans
Ingredients
250g dried butter beans (soaked overnight) or 500g cooked
50ml good olive oil and a couple of spoonfuls of fat (pork or lamb work well), or 100ml good olive oil
Soffritto (discussed here) of a small onion, carrot and stick of celery
A couple of sprigs of rosemary and some sage leaves
A few cloves of garlic
Dried chilli (optional)
300g excellent passata, or a good tin of plum tomatoes passed through a food mill.
Bread and some condiment (home-made aioli, salsa verde or hummus would all work well)
If using dry beans, drain them from the soaking water. Put them in a pan with enough water to cover by an inch or so, add a teaspoon of salt and bring to the boil. Add 6 (ish) sage leaves and a couple of cloves of garlic and let simmer until the beans are soft (about 2 hours). Skim the foam from time to time, and replenish with water if it gets low.
If using canned beans, skip this step and simply drain the beans. The disadvantage with using canned is that you don’t then get the bean cooking water to add to the braise, which adds a little sweetness and extra depth. Don’t use the liquid from the can, this doesn’t taste good in my opinion.
Pour the oil and fat (or just oil) into a pan large enough to eventually fit all the beans, turn the heat on low and add the rosemary sprigs and dry chilli. Allow this to gently poach with the slightest of simmers for a few minutes then add the chopped onion, carrot and celery with a big pinch of salt.
Turn the heat up to medium and allow your soffritto to cook for about 10 minutes until it has softened and the onions are golden. Add the passata with another sprinkle of salt and cook a further 10 minutes until it has thickened and the fat has separated from the tomatoes. Pour in your beans with a ladle or two of the cooking liquid (or water if using canned) and cook together on low heat for another fifteen minutes so the flavours all get a chance to know each other.
Let it cool a little before eating just so it is not burning hot. Put out some good bread, a jar of aioli or salsa verde and extra olive oil for all to liberally add as they go. Sip on a splendid wine that can take star place in the show, and sit back for a light but long lunch of tearing away at bread, smearing with sauces and spooning beans with the crust.
Soup plus sauces (and Coomeshead bread). An eternal dish - one that would last me for eternity. Alas I will have to pass on the wine.