‘Home Cookery Year cookbook’: Recipes from butter beans and spinach to buckwheat noodles with avocado

Butter beans with spinach, tarragon, bacon and cream

Use streaky bacon for this recipe. Thinly sliced, it will exude its fat into the butter as it cooks and crisps in the pan. You could use pancetta, if you prefer. You must then absolutely make use of this bacon fat to marble and dress the creamy tarragon beans. It will boost the seasoning and give more pep to the finished dish. This is midweek cookery with little more than a can of beans, some bacon and spinach – and thick slices of toast, of course.

30g (1oz) unsalted butter

Three cloves of garlic, finely chopped (plus another whole clove for the toast)

200ml (7fl oz) double (heavy) cream

Two x 400g (14oz) cans of butter (lima) or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

Big pinch of ground nutmeg

100g (3½oz) baby spinach leaves

¼ small bunch of tarragon, leaves picked and roughly chopped

Six rashers of streaky bacon or pancetta, cut into lardon cubes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Four slices of good bread, toasted and rubbed with garlic, to serve

Juice of ½ lemon (optional), to serve

Melt half the butter in a medium saucepan over a moderate heat and add the chopped garlic. Fry for two minutes, until the garlic is just beginning to turn golden brown. Add the cream, beans and nutmeg, stirring to combine. Season well with salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. 

When the mixture begins to bubble up, reduce the heat to moderate to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for at least five minutes, until the cream has thickened a little. Add the spinach and cook for two to three minutes, until just wilted, then add the tarragon and mix well.

If you would like the mixture to be more stew-like, mash some of the beans using a fork for a thicker consistency. Melt the remaining butter in a cast-iron frying panover a moderate heat. Add the bacon and fry  for three to five minutes, until crisp and golden.

To serve, put a slice of toast on each plate, add the beans and top with the bacon, including any of the molten, buttery bacon fat from the frying pan. Lots of black pepper is good, and you might like to add a little lemon juice to the beans.

Green apple, Thai basil and smoked tofu with shallots and bird’s eye chilli

The apples and the smoked tofu are an excellent canvas for the dressing in this recipe, a dazzling combination of cherry tomatoes and peanuts, which are pestle-bashed in a mortar (or use a food processor, those little ones are often very handy, to bruise and break everything down just enough), then mixed through with the lime, fish sauce and shallots.

Try to get hold of some Thai basil – it has a pungent, slightly spicy flavour redolent of liquorice and anise, quite different to standard sweet basil, which has more minty, grassy notes. Most larger supermarkets stock it these days, and (most likely of all) Asian grocery stores. This is a light lunch or supper dish that truly packs a punch.

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

One to three Thai bird’s eye chillies, thinly sliced, plus more to taste if needed

1 tbsp palm sugar (or use light brown soft sugar)

30g (1oz) roasted peanuts, lightly crushed

Eight cherry tomatoes, halved

4 tsp fish sauce, plus more to taste if needed

Juice of one lime, plus more to taste if needed

Three small shallots (or one large), very finely sliced

Three tart, firm green eating apples (such as Granny Smith)

Two little gem or one soft round lettuce, leaves separated

One small bunch of Thai basil (or use green or purple basil), leaves picked and roughly chopped if large

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a food processor on pulse or in a mortar with a pestle, pound the garlic, chillies and sugar to a paste. Add one tablespoon of the peanuts and all the cherry tomatoes and pound or blitz a few times, just to bruise the tomatoes and release some juices. Stir in the fish sauce, lime juice and shallots and put to one side.

Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper as necessary. Fill a bowl with some salted water. Slice or shred the apples with a peeler or cut them into matchsticks (peel them, if you prefer), putting them straight into the bowl of salted water to prevent discolouration.

Drain the apples and transfer them to a large mixing bowl along with the lettuce leaves, tofu and basil.

Add the dressing, adjusting with more lime, chilli or fish sauce, if necessary, and serve immediately with the remaining peanuts strewn over the top.

Buckwheat noodles with avocado, edamame and walnut pesto

I’m a big fan of buckwheat or soba noodles. From the buckwheat seed, and not a grain as the name suggests, buckwheat is gluten free and a reliably useful and versatile ingredient. Ground as a flour to make noodles or pasta, it has an intensely nutty flavour, which suits cold dishes such as this salad very well. While noodles might make you think more of Asia than Italy, as the pesto here might prompt, buckwheat pasta is also used in Italian cooking. 

Buckwheat, walnut pesto, avocado, chard and edamame – these are all flavours that work very well together, all earthy and nutty. You’ll find buckwheat or soba noodles easily enough to make this recipe, or you could look for more elusive Italian buckwheatpasta varieties.

Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped

50g (1¾oz) walnuts, roughly chopped

40g (1½oz) parmesan, grated (shredded)

50ml (1¾fl oz) good olive oil, plus more for the noodles and to serve

350g (12oz) buckwheat or soba noodles

200g (7oz) chard, stalks and leaves chopped

100g (3½oz) podded edamame beans (fresh or frozen)

Zest and juice of one lemon

50g (1¾oz) rocket (arugula), roughly chopped

Two avocados, stoned, peeled and cut into small cubes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Blend or use a pestle and mortar to mix the basil, garlic, walnuts and parmesan to a coarse paste, then pulse or pound while slowly adding the olive oil to form a smooth sauce. Season well with salt and pepper.

Bring a large saucepan of unsalted water to a boil. Cook the noodles according to the packet instructions (about four or five minutes), then drain and rinse under cold water and toss them with two tablespoons of olive oil.

Fill the saucepan back up with well-salted water and bring to a boil. Add the chard stalks, then the leaves and finally the edamame. Cook for three to four minutes, until tender.

Drain well and spread out on a plate to cool quickly. To serve, in a large bowl or a wide platter, add the noodles, chard and edamame and stir through with the pesto (you can leave some to serve on the side, if you wish). Add the lemon zest and juice, then the rocket (arugula) and avocado and check the seasoning, adding more salt and pepper to taste.

‘Home Cookery Year’ by Claire Thomson (Quadrille, £30). Photography: Sam Folan