Get your beans pickled and add some crisply fried halloumi cheese and sweet, spicy peppadews.
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Cook dried beans according to package directions or your preference, but add no salt, and do not overcook. Cool and drain beans, and rinse well. Pack the beans into a sealable jar large enough to hold them easily, interspersed with the rings of red onion. Bring the water, vinegar, spices, salt and sugar to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. Pour the liquid over the beans and onion while still hot. Seal the jar when cool, then let stand at room temperature overnight. Refrigerate the next day, and keep refrigerated.
To make the salad, slice the cheese about 3/8" thick, and saute in 2 tsp olive oil until nicely browned on both sides, about 6 or 8 minutes. Cool and cut into strips. In a large bowl, gently toss the cheese, peppadews and beans with the vinegar, then toss once again with the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil. Serve as is or on lettuce leaves, garnished with the pickled red onion slices, as an appetizer or salad side dish.
These recipe quantities will work fine, but you don't really need them. For any given quantity of beans you want to pickle, just set them up in a jar, add water to cover generously, then pour the water out into a measuring cup. Note the number of milliliters - for example, the 2 cups in the recipe is around 500 ml. Replace half the water with vinegar, and make a 5% percent brine by dividing the number of milliliters by 20, then weighing out that many grams of salt. Then add three times as much sugar, also by weight.
A digital scale that can zero out and read in both ounces and grams is a beautiful thing. Two tablespoons of Diamond Crystal kosher salt weigh about 25 grams, but the same quantity of fine sea salt may weigh almost twice as much, resulting in a very salty 8% or 9% brine. If you intend to pickle a lot - and you should - weighing in grams is the way to go.
Salty halloumi cheese, crisped up in a skillet or grilled, is a great addition here but so would be feta, queso fresco or creamy Greek manouri. (Did you know that manouri is to feta as ricotta is to mozzarella?)
Ingredients
Directions
Cook dried beans according to package directions or your preference, but add no salt, and do not overcook. Cool and drain beans, and rinse well. Pack the beans into a sealable jar large enough to hold them easily, interspersed with the rings of red onion. Bring the water, vinegar, spices, salt and sugar to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. Pour the liquid over the beans and onion while still hot. Seal the jar when cool, then let stand at room temperature overnight. Refrigerate the next day, and keep refrigerated.
To make the salad, slice the cheese about 3/8" thick, and saute in 2 tsp olive oil until nicely browned on both sides, about 6 or 8 minutes. Cool and cut into strips. In a large bowl, gently toss the cheese, peppadews and beans with the vinegar, then toss once again with the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil. Serve as is or on lettuce leaves, garnished with the pickled red onion slices, as an appetizer or salad side dish.
These recipe quantities will work fine, but you don't really need them. For any given quantity of beans you want to pickle, just set them up in a jar, add water to cover generously, then pour the water out into a measuring cup. Note the number of milliliters - for example, the 2 cups in the recipe is around 500 ml. Replace half the water with vinegar, and make a 5% percent brine by dividing the number of milliliters by 20, then weighing out that many grams of salt. Then add three times as much sugar, also by weight.
A digital scale that can zero out and read in both ounces and grams is a beautiful thing. Two tablespoons of Diamond Crystal kosher salt weigh about 25 grams, but the same quantity of fine sea salt may weigh almost twice as much, resulting in a very salty 8% or 9% brine. If you intend to pickle a lot - and you should - weighing in grams is the way to go.
Salty halloumi cheese, crisped up in a skillet or grilled, is a great addition here but so would be feta, queso fresco or creamy Greek manouri. (Did you know that manouri is to feta as ricotta is to mozzarella?)
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