White Beans with Fennel and Lemon

The vegetarian braise that does not taste like a substitution — fennel cooked long enough to go sweet, beans cooked long enough to go creamy.

Fennel behaves like two different vegetables depending on how long you cook it. Twenty minutes gives you something aniseedy and assertive. An hour gives you something sweet and almost jammy, which is what this dish wants.

Prep

15 min

Cook

1 hr 15 min

Total

1 hr 30 min

Makes

4 servings

Difficulty

Easy

Cuisine

Mediterranean

Ingredients

The braise

• 300 g dried cannellini beans

  Soaked overnight. Two 400g tins work; skip to step three.

• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 fennel bulbs, quartered, core left in
• 1 onion, sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
• 700 ml vegetable stock

To finish

• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• ½ cup flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp good olive oil

  For pouring over at the table.

Equipment

• Heavy casserole with a lid

Method

1. Start the beans

   Drain the soaked beans, cover with fresh water, bring to a hard boil for ten minutes, then simmer until almost tender — 40 to 60 minutes depending on their age. Keep the cooking water.

   55 min

2. Sweeten the fennel

   Meanwhile, brown the fennel quarters in oil on their cut sides until they take real colour. Add the onion and cook until soft, then the garlic, fennel seeds and chilli for a minute more.

   15 min

3. Braise

   Add the beans with enough of their water plus the stock to just cover. Season, bring to a tremble, cover, and cook at 160°C until the beans are creamy and the fennel yields to a spoon.

   45 min

4. Finish

   Off the heat, stir through lemon zest and juice and most of the parsley. Let it sit for ten minutes — it thickens as it cools. Pour over the good oil at the table.

   10 min

Cook's notes

• Salt the beans only once they are tender if they are old; young beans can be salted from the start.
• Leftovers become soup with a splash of stock, or a bruschetta topping crushed onto toast.