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Butter beans with spinach, tarragon, bacon and cream
Serves 4 Starters and mains
Ingredients
- 30g unsalted butter
- 4 garlic cloves, 3 finely chopped, 1 whole, for the toast
- 200ml double cream
- 2 x 400g cans butter or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- Generous pinch of ground nutmeg
- 100g baby spinach leaves
- 1⁄4 small bunch tarragon, leaves picked and roughly chopped
- 6 rashers streaky bacon or pancetta, cut into lardon cubes
To serve
- 4 slices bread, toasted and rubbed with garlic, to serve
- juice 1⁄2 lemon (optional),to serve
Method
Melt half the butter in a medium saucepan over a medium heat and add the chopped garlic. Fry for 2 minutes, until the garlic is beginning to turn golden brown. Add the cream, beans and nutmeg, stirring to combine. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. When the mixture begins to bubble up, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for at least 5 minutes, until the cream has thickened a little.
Add the spinach and cook for 2-3 minutes, until just wilted, then add the tarragon and mix well. If you would like the mixture to be more stew-like, mash some of the beans using a fork. Melt the remaining butter in a cast-iron frying pan over a medium heat. Add the bacon and fry for 3-5 minutes.
Put a slice of toast on each plate, add the beans and top with the bacon, including any of the molten, buttery bacon fat from the frying pan. Lots of black pepper is good, and you might like to add a little lemon juice to the beans, too.
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