Butter bean & basil panzanella
A celebration of old, stale bread
Wondering whether you should throw big chunks of torn up bread into your next ‘salad’? Admittedly, I use the term ‘salad’ here in the loosest possible sense, but the answer is yes. Yes, you should. The torn up sourdough is hands down the most delicious thing about this dish. As you toss the panzanella, the bread absorbs all the oils and flavours from the roasted cherry tomatoes and field mushrooms, turning it soft, chewy and abominably delicious.
Butter Bean & Basil Panzanella
Serves 4
Ingredients
3 cups of cherry tomatoes
10 cloves of garlic (whole, with the skin left on)
2 Tbsp olive oil 1 large red onion, cut into wedges
A few pinches of salt
300g (about 4 cups) of sourdough, torn into chunks
300g (about 5 cups) of field mushrooms, sliced thickly
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp tamari
1 can of butter beans (400g), drained
3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1 cup of roughly torn basil leaves
Method
Preheat your oven to 200 ̊C conventional (180 ̊C fan forced).
Put the cherry tomatoes, whole garlic cloves, olive oil and red onion on an oven tray along with a few generous pinches of salt. Roast for 20-30 minutes, or until the cherry tomatoes have puckered and started to brown, and the onion has gone soft and started to caramelise.
On another oven tray, place the torn pieces of sourdough. Bake in the oven for about 5 minutes, or until the bread has started to crisp on the outside but is still soft in the centre (alternatively, you can use stale bread, in which case you don’t need to roast it in the oven first).
Remove from the oven and leave the bread to cool on the tray. While the tomatoes are roasting, fry the mushrooms with the olive oil and tamari in a frying pan. Fry until the mushrooms have softened, released their juices and started to brown on the outside.
Put the torn bread in a big bowl. Once the cherry tomatoes, onions and garlic cloves are done roasting, tip the entire contents of the tray (including any juice the tomatoes might have released) on top of the torn bread. Do the same with the fried mushrooms and their juices.
Add the drained can of butter beans, the 3 cloves of finely diced garlic, and the cup of torn basil leaves. Toss gently to combine, then serve while still warm.
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