As you may already know we love making dips with pulses. Have you tried our mixed pulses dip? Or our bean dip with roasted red peppers and sun-dried tomatoes?
It’s a great way to eat beans, especially when it’s warm outside and the weather calls for something other than a stew or a soup. So this week we’ve prepared a lovely white dip, using our little small beans from Grevena, in northern Greece. You can use gigantes beans as well if you prefer, but we like these little ones.
We are making it with a few simple ingredients: spring onions and garlic, but you can experiment with any other onions or garlic that you have handy. And we’ve added a secret ingredient, capers!
And as we realised, this dip is also lovely served as a side dish, instead of mashed potatoes or any other mash you may be making. Yum!
Makes one large bowl
250g small beans
3 cloves of garlic
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp lemon juice
zest from 1 lemon
2 spring onions
2 tbsp capers
The night before soak your beans. The morning after drain, and cook in plenty of water until tender.
Drain the cooked beans, reserving one cup of the cooking liquid. Set aside and let cool.
Roughly chop the spring onions, garlic and capers.
In a blender blend together the beans, olive oil, lemon juice and zest, spring onions, garlic and capers. You will need to add a bit of the cooking liquid to loosen up the mixture. We used ½ a cup, but you might need a bit more. Once your mixture is smooth transfer to a bowl and season with salt and pepper.
We prefer serving this dip on a simple white soup plate. Sometimes simplicity is quite calming, I do not know if you agree?
But if you’re into decorating, then finely chop some spring onions, add some more capers, reserve some of the cooked beans, drizzle some olive oil and add some more lemon zest. Either way, enjoy with some raw vegetables and crusty bread!
