Quick and Easy
Skillet White Beans “Caesar” From Deb Perelman
- Prep time 10 minutes
- Cook time 10 minutes
- Serves 1 to 2
Author Notes
This recipe is excerpted from "Smitten Kitchen Keepers," the October 2024 Book of the Month in the Food52 Cookbook Club.
Sometimes I daydream about writing a cookbook entirely devoted to ways you can doctor up a can of beans. It’s usually during lunch on a weekday, which on all of the days when I’m not working on a wildly successful, ready-by-1:00-p.m. recipe that I don’t need to save for dinner—that would be just about all of the days—is highly likely to be a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. When I do make time for experimentation, canned beans are one of my favorite muses. My two favorite things to do with them are to treat them as you would pasta—warming them in some tomato sauce with Parmesan, or an aglio olio, or a basil pesto—or to apply a favorite salad dressing to them and scoop them onto toast. This version is a little of both. To a quadfecta of ingredients—olive oil, garlic, anchovies, and lemon—that could make a crumpled piece of paper taste good (note: not fact-checked), I add a smidge of Dijon mustard and a small amount of capers (they’re so good here; please, try them), and warm a can of beans in it. They’re finished with some fried breadcrumbs reminiscent of the croutons essential to all good Caesar salads, and Parmesan, and then you’re supposed to slide them onto a bowl or plate—but nobody is going to know if you eat them straight from the pan.
(Note: Despite its cooking-for-one vibe, this is also very nicely doubled as a more substantial side dish.)—Deb Perelman
—Food52
Test Kitchen Notes
From "Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New Classics for Your Forever Files" by Deb Perelman. Copyright © 2022 by Deb Perelman. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. —The Editors
Ingredients
-
Olive oil
-
1/2 cup
(30 grams) panko-style plain or coarse breadcrumbs
-
Kosher salt
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2
garlic cloves
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3
anchovy filets
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1 tablespoon
drained capers
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Red pepper flakes
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1/2
lemon, zested and juiced
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1
15.5-ounce (440-gram) can white beans (cannellini, navy, or other), drained and rinsed
-
1/4 teaspoon
smooth Dijon mustard
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1 tablespoon
grated Parmesan
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1 tablespoon
chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (optional)
Directions
- In a medium-sized skillet, warm 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat; then add the breadcrumbs. Season with salt, and cook, stirring, until they’re crisp and evenly golden brown, about 5 minutes. Scrape them into a bowl and set aside.
- On a cutting board, mince together the garlic, anchovies, and capers.
- Heat another 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic-caper mixture, pepper flakes, and zest, and cook until the garlic is lightly golden at the edges. Add the beans, and cook until they’re warmed through, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Stir in the Dijon mustard, and cook with the beans for 30 seconds. The beans will look a little creamy; add 1 table-spoon water if they don’t. Season with salt to taste.
- Turn the heat off, and finish with a squeeze of lemon juice. Transfer to a bowl or plate, and finish with crumbs, Parmesan, and parsley, if using. Eat right away.
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