Holiday bean confit
Here's a showstopping recipe to cook for your loved ones this season. While not technically confit by definition, we love this idea of slowly roasting already cooked beans in lots of oil and with festive aromatics. It's easily adjusted for personal preference: add more garlic, kumquats, or anything else that makes you happy as you cook along to holiday tunes.
Which beans to use? Ayocote Blanco, Ayocote Morado, or other large firm bean. Take 'em from dried to cooked with our guide!
Featured bean: Ayocote Blanco
Other beans to try: Classic Flat White, Ayocote Morado
Take 'em from dried to cooked with our guide!
Ingredients
- ½ lb cooked beans, drained
- A handful of kumquats, washed, stems and seeds removed, sliced in ¼-½-inch thick rounds
- ½ to 1 head garlic sliced in a cross-sectional cut
- 1-2 dried chiles, ideally small like chiles de árbol (optional)
- Large sprig rosemary
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Lots of olive oil
Steps
Preheat the oven to 250 F. In an oven-safe dish, gently stir beans and kumquats together to mix. Season with a healthy sprinkle of salt and pepper. Nestle in garlic cut-side down, and add rosemary and chiles if using. Pour olive oil over the dish until it fills to just under the top surface of the beans, like a good pour of milk on cereal. Lightly press everything down to get an even surface without any rogue beans or kumquats poking their way out of the olive oil.
Place baking dish on a rimmed baking sheet and bake at 250 degrees for ~40 minutes, or until garlic and rosemary are fragrant and soft, kumquats are jammy, and beans are a little toasted on top. (If you want some extra toasty beans with a lovely chewy texture, set it and forget it. If you want softer, more evenly textured beans, gently stir the dish once or twice during baking.)
Serve slightly warm or at room temperature with a slotted spoon over crusty sourdough.
