Braised romano beans with tomatoes and garlic

I haven't published a blog post in just over 10 years.  Some enthusiastic followers of this blog have died since I last posted.  Other have entered memory care facilities.  I am really sorry fo my neglignce in not sharing one of my favorite dishes sooner.  

My excuse is that I thought for years that I was making L.V. Anderson's recipe for slow-braised greean beans  Turkish-style, which had appeared in Slate in 2012.  When I looked at the recipe a little while ago, it turned out that mine was significantly different.  I could not figure out where I actually got it from, and since it is far and away my favorite vegetable dish, I figured that I should come back and blog it.

Other than cooking beans with tomatoes and aliums for 2 1/2 hours, the recipes are actually substantially different.  She uses regular green beans.  I use romanos, the flat beens that are in the markets, at least in NYC, late spring to early fall.  (I will occasionally make it with flat yellow beans if I can find them, or regular green or wax beans, which actually come out beautifully.  My wife just told me last week that she  prefers the dish with regular green beans.  I think it took her at least 10 years to get up the courage to say that.). I use far more garlic than Anderson does, and no water, lemon juice or dill.  I use more tomato and grate it rather than chopping it.  And while she just dumps it in the pot I layer it lovingly in a cast iron skillet.  I hope that you agree that the visual aesthetics make the very slight effort worth it.  

However, I think that Anderson was very right about the virtues of cooking vegetables for what might seem like an absurdly long time.  This is not only a Mediterranean thing -- it has long been a practice in the American South.  A graduate school friend of mine use to brag that when she really wanted a treat she would boil green beans for 4 hours!  Anderson writes: "these green beans aren’t merely overcooked; they’re so far beyond overcooked that they’ve practically transubstantiated. When you simmer green beans for a couple of hours, they become tangled, silky, and so tender that they nearly dissolve on your tongue."  Samin Nosrat published a method for long cooked vegetables in the New York Times  a number of years ago.  Her recipe uses shallots, garlic, anchovies, basil, lemon  and grated cheese, but no tomato.  I urge you to try it one day, it is really good, especially with the romano beans, but mine is actually easier and needs no attention.  Here is how I do it:  (If you really need exact quantities, just stop reading now.  Or persevere and find that you really don't need them as miuch as you think you do.)

Ingredients

• 2 1.2 pounds of romano or other beans
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, about 1-1 1/2 pounds total. (Don't waste your money on heirlooms here, just good ripe tomatoes that you can cook with.
• 4-10 large cloves of garlic, sliced thin
• olive oil
• Salt, fresh ground black pepper and Aleppo pepper
• To serve, lemon, yogurt, feta, dill, or nothing......

Method

1. Wash the beans well. (I dump them in a big bowl of water, swish them around a few times, and then drain them.). Snap or cut off the stem ends.
2. Glug a significant amount of olive oil (quantity up to you) in a 10 inch cast iron skillet.  Scatter the sliced garlic more or less evenly in the skillet.
3. Lay the beans in the skillet, layering them neatly and filling the holes with some havled beans.  Don't worry if the mound seems a bit high.
4. Cut the tomatoes in half width-wise and grate into a bowl or a deep plate on the large holes of a grater.  You will be left with tomato puree in the bowl, and the tomato skins in your hand.
5. Distribute the puree more or less evenly over the beans.
6. Salt generously (1/2 tablespoon of kosher salt is not a bad thing here, more if you want) some coarsely ground black pepper, and a half teaspoon to a teaspoon of Aleppo pepper if you like it.  (You should.)  Anoint (I don't want to say drizzle because that sounds to light) with some more olive oil.
7. Cover with a slightly domed cover, and bring to the simmer over high heat for a few mintues.  The cover will feel noticeably hot.  Turn the heat down to low.  Check after about 15 mintues to make sure the cover is still hot, and if it is not, turn the heat up a bit.  An induction stove would be great here at holding a steady low simmer.
8. Cook for about 2  1/2 half hours total.  At about 2 hours check the beans.  Taste the juice and add salt if necessary.  If there is a lot of liquid, partially uncover and turn the heat up a very little bit.
9. At the end, most of the liquid will have boiled away and you will be left with the oil on the bottom tasting of caramelized tomato and garlic.  If the full time has passed and there is still liquid, you can uncover and boil it a bit, watching carefully so it doesn't burn.  Or don't worry about it, it will be delicious.

If you want, serve with lemon quarters and chopped dill, yogurt or feta, though I usually have none of the above. It is great with crusty bread, bulgur , or rice and noodle pilaf (arroz con fideos as they say in Turkey).