Slow cooked Greek greens
- Prepare
- less than 30 mins
- Cook
- 1 to 2 hours
- Serve
- Serves 4
A nutritious meal inspired by a Greek style of cooking called ‘yiahni’ – slow-cooked seasonal veg in oil and tomatoes. Forget crunchy veg, I want tender, sweet and delicious vegetables.
In the summer I will slowly cook runner beans, green beans and peas in lots of garlic, onions and tomatoes. Usually eaten with fresh bread and capers.
Ingredients
- 4–5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for serving
- 3 onions, sliced
- 3 carrots, peeled and sliced into 1cm/½in rounds
- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp tomato purée
- 400g tin chopped tomatoes (or 400g/14oz fresh, ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped)
- 500ml/18fl oz vegetable stock
- 600g/1lb 5oz green beans or runner beans (or a mixture of both), trimmed and cut into halves or thirds
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 15g/½oz mixed fresh soft herbs (I like dill and flatleaf parsley), finely chopped, to serve
- fresh bread, to serve
- capers, to serve (optional)
Method
Pour the olive oil into a large saucepan – there should be enough to fill it by 1cm/½in. Place on a medium heat and fry the onions and carrots for 10 minutes to soften slightly, reducing the heat a little as they cook.
Stir in the chopped garlic, then after a minute add the tomato purée. Add the tomatoes and the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Stir the beans into the tomato sauce. Cover the pan and continue to cook for a further 30 minutes, or until the veg is soft.
You don’t want it to be watery, so remove the lid, turn the heat up and boil vigorously for a final 5–10 minutes to thicken the stew. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Serve drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and scattered with the chopped herbs, with fresh bread and capers on the side.
