Gigantes plaki is Greece’s dish of giant white beans baked in tomato with herbs and olive oil. As the Greek cookery writer Diane Kochilas puts it, “there are so many great recipes all over Greece for braised or baked giant beans, called gigantes”. The giant beans are butter beans, and tinned ones are already cooked, so this version is finished on the hob in half an hour.
A great deal of olive oil, which is not a mistake in the recipe. Gigantes is an oil dish; using a cautious amount gives you beans in thin tomato.
- Oil, dried onion three minutes on a gentle heat until it swells and softens.
- Garlic and oregano, thirty seconds.
- Passata, salt, 100 ml water. Simmered fifteen minutes until it darkens.
- Drained butter beans in, very gently so they stay whole. Ten minutes more at a bare simmer.
- Off the heat, another thread of oil over the top, and left to stand five minutes before eating.
Butter beans are fragile once tinned. Stirring hard turns them to paste, so turn them through with a spoon under and over rather than around.
Better warm than hot, which is how it is eaten in Greece.
Serves 4 with bread.