Flageolet beans - any good ideas?

ChocClare

My (French) husband goes on these little jaunts to Caen or Cherbourg every so often and comes back with a Renault Espace full of typical French fare for us to nosh.

Unfortunately. he has a siege mentality which means that he always worries France will run out of things, so he comes back with eight tons of everything.

As a result I have huge numbers of tins of flageolet beans.

Has anybody got any good recipes? Obviously we have them with lamb, but anything else? Can they replace other types of beans in other recipes? All you veggies out there, you must have some tasty ideas we could use - I need to get these tins OUT of my cupboard!!

Many thanks in advance!

squeaky

Here's a salad idea if you like fennel too.

flageolet, corn and fennel salad

1 cup dried flageolet beans soaked in cold water overnight
2 cups corn kernels (about 4 ears)
1 large fennel bulb trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 small red onion cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 small papaya seeded peeled and diced
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves coarsely chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves chopped

cumin vinaigrette:
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
6 tablespoons olive ail
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

fresh mint leaves for garnish

Drain beans and put in pot with cold water to cover.
Bring to a boil partially cover reduce heat and simmer 35 to 45 minutes or until tender.
Drain and let cool.
Cook corn in salted boiling water until tender about 3 minutes.
Let cool. In a large bowl combine beans corn fennel onion papaya mint and parsley.
In a small bowl whisk all vinaigrette ingredients together.
Toss with bean mixture.
Garnish with mint.

Though small in size the flageolet has perhaps the best flavour of all dried beans. Its delicate celadon colour and French connections also give it a certain panache yet it is simply a kidney bean in its immature state. Combined with the sunny glints of papaya and corn flageolets make an unusual salad radiant with exquisite colours.


Edit: Since, as it says here, they are immature kidney beans, I would suppose that any recipe with kidney beans would work... so how do you fancy chilli every day for the next few months?

Curry_Queen

I have several tins in the cupboard myself and use them in all sorts of dishes that require any form of beans, sometimes alone, sometimes mixed with other varieties.

There's a Spicy Beef & Bean casserole in the recipe thread that I've also used them in too

THIRZAH

I fry an onion in olive oil, when it is soft add two or three skinned chopped tomatoes. Let them soften then add tin flagloet beans

squeaky

Curry_Queen wrote:

I have several tins in the cupboard myself and use them in all sorts of dishes that require any form of beans, sometimes alone, sometimes mixed with other varieties.

There's a Spicy Beef & Bean casserole in the recipe thread that I've also used them in too

Dash it I've got to turn my printer on now! That's definitely in my meal planner for next week!

Galtizz

squeaky wrote:

Here's a salad idea if you like fennel too.

flageolet, corn and fennel salad

Squeaky, could you please make sure you add this to the recipe thread, otherwise it won't be indexed :rotfl:

There is Vanoonoo's Mexican Bean Thingy in the slow cooker thread, I guess you could use fageolet beans in place of or as well as the other beans.

I had this last night, (I used spices instead of the packet mix) I put the slow cooker on yesterday morning to leave it on for 36hrs but it smelled so good by last night OH wouldn't wait until tonight to eat it. It was lovely and I've got some for the freezer and some for my lunch. :drool:

squeaky

Galtizz wrote:

Squeaky, could you please make sure you add this to the recipe thread, otherwise it won't be indexed :rotfl:

I'm having horrendous connection problems at the moment - a tree is literally sawing my phone line apart as it aways in the breeze. have I said this already?

Anyway, yes, of course I'll add it to the recipe thread.

Oh, and...

Badgergal

I had a mixed bean tin which I'm sure had flagloet beans in it, and I used it to make the Mexican Bean Thing mentioned above at the weekend. It turned out lovely.

Galtizz, what spices did you use instead of the packet mix please?

mink35

Would you put flageolet in a three bean salad - the one you get red kidney beans in and onions and some nice dressing? ... anyone got a recipe?

Galtizz

Badgergal wrote:

Galtizz, what spices did you use instead of the packet mix please?

I used:

1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Oregano
2 tsp HOT chilli powder
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried chillis

I like it hot, hot, hot if you don't use mild chilli powder and don't put the dried chillis in (dried chillis can be found in the spices isle usually with the chilli powder, Asda and Tesco's do there own brand, they add extra heat to things and the longer they cook the hotter they get)

HTH

Badgergal

Great, thanks Galtizz. I think that will work out much cheaper than buying a packet mix every time.