Hello!
It’s Issue #2 of Table Read! Once again, I’m extremely grateful for all of you entering your name into that little box and hitting ‘subscribe’. The fact you’re here and reading this makes me very very happy.
If you missed my welcome email, consider popping back to have a read as it acts as part 1 to this newsletter, chatting about my squiggly career path from stage to stove and how an audience of hungry Instagram followers led me to a job in - very, very special - beans; which leads us nicely onto the topic of todays newsletter.
Magic Beans?
As lockdown slowly began to ease, I moved to London with the naive thinking that a career on stage would be much easier here. Oh heck, was I wrong. And instead of The West End being my calling, it was a jar of big, creamy, juicy beans.
With the food-filled Instagram grid in my back pocket, I was fortunate to be introduced to a whole new world of incredible, inspiring, and likeminded people. The most memorable for me was a very special person with a very special product: her name is Amelia and the product is Bold Bean Co.
I reckon 90% of you reading this will know of Bold Beans. I remember tasting my first Queen Butter Bean back in the early lockdown days, straight from the jar, and specifically shouting “OMG Mum, Dad come have a try of this” - to which they were confused and somewhat disappointed to see.. a bean :( But the moment they took that same spoonful from the jar, we were all hooked. Creamy, buttery, melt-in-the-mouth deliciousness, my bean perception was about to change forever.
I won’t blabber on as to why they are so much better than what’s in a can - this page will do just that - but once you try them, it’ll a) make me sound less of a crazy-bean-lady, but b) you’ll come to realise that veg-centric cooking really can be exciting, tempting and indulgently delicious.
Just a quick pause! If you’re as hooked on these beans as I am (or would like to be!) I’m giving my paid subscribers 20% off Bold Bean’s online shop. The subscription is just £3.50 a month, or £35.00 for the year (that’s pretty much 2 months for free!). You’ll also get at least one bonus recipe every other week, plus my musings about food, recent travels and occasional chatter for theatre & book recommendations.
And so, after many bean recipes later - or more accurately, beans from the jar later - I now work for this very company whose mission is to make people obsessed with beans by giving them the BEST of beans. Because honestly, we really do all need more beans in our life (how many more times can I say beans?).
It was a scary, exciting, risky decision (on both parts!), but looking back 2 years later, it was clear it was the right one - pretty life changing, even. So yes, you could say they are pretty magic beans, indeed.
I wanted to bring this little, or rather big, chapter of my life to “the table”, to get to the point of saying: if you’re in a squiggly position right now and unsure where you’re headed, I hope this encourages, even just one person, to take the leap. Did baby-ballet dancing Han think she’d have a career in beans? Heck no. Is 26 year old Han happy she does? Heck yes. If you’re “uming” and “ahing” on something, believe in it, roll with it, you can always find a way.
On Today’s Table
Now you kinda get why we're all about the beans, let’s bring something tasty to the table.
A bowl of brothy beans, any greens & plenty of parmesan
When the beans are good, they really don’t need much else doing to them. I’d even recommend something as simple as this, to really appreciate them in their full glory.
But as the weather gets colder and the evenings get darker, we all tend to crave a phrase I pinched from Sophie Wyburd, a bit of “spooning”: food you can cook on a cold winters day, curled up on the sofa and eat with just a spoon. And nothing quite hits this spot for me than big creamy beans in something soupy, saucy, or brothy.
I say “any greens”, as really, most dark, leafy greens will work well in this - kale, cavolo nero, spinach, chard - whatever is looking perky in the supermarket, or something that just needs using up in your fridge. Any white beans will work too - butter beans, cannellini, or I’ve even done a mixture of the two before - but please trust me when I say get your hands on a good jar of beans for this if you can, you’ll really notice the difference.
Ingredients (feeds 4-6)
3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for finishing
2 onions, peeled and finely sliced
1/2 large fennel bulb or 1 small, thinly sliced (optional)
4 fat garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
1 tsp fennel seeds
A handful of fresh sage (about 4 stalks), leaves roughly chopped
1 sprig rosemary, leaves roughly chopped
The zest of 2 lemons
150ml white wine, or 50ml white wine vinegar
2 x 570g jar of good quality white beans (butter beans, cannellini beans, or a mixture of the two)
400ml veg stock
100g leaf greens such as kale, cavolo nero or chard
50g parmesan, plus extra to serve
A good hunk of sourdough, to serve
Method
1.Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Stir in the onion and fennel (if using) with a pinch of salt and cook for an initial 7-8 minutes until starting to soften. Then, add in the garlic, fennel seeds, sage leaves, rosemary and the zest of 1 lemon. Stir to combine and reduce the heat to low. Gently sweat for 12-15 minutes, stirring occasionally - be patient with this, as the longer the cook, the more the flavours are going to build. You want the onions to be jammy and slightly caramelised. If they start to catch, add a splash of water to loosen them.
2.Add the beans with their bean stock, crushing a handful as you pour them in - this will help to thicken the stew. Swill the bean jar 1/4 with water and pour that in too, followed by the wine/vinegar and veg stock then increase the heat to a lively boil, stirring everything well to combine. Reduce to a gentle simmer, and the greens and cook for 7-8 minutes. NOTE: if using tinned beans, they’ll be a little tougher and usually unseasoned. So add a pinch of salt and cook them down in the sauce for another 8 minutes or so.
3.Add the parmesan and season with plenty of cracked black pepper and salt to taste. Add a squeeze of the lemon juice, if it needs more acidity.
4.Ladle the beans into bowls and finish with plenty of parmesan and a good drizzle of olive oil. Finish with a bit more lemon zest if you like. Serve with a chunky slice of warm sourdough.
This is a great batch-cook which freezes well but will keep in the fridge for 3 days (tastes even better the next day!)
A beany bonus
This next section of the newsletter is for paid subscribers, containing a bonus recipe, a generous discount code and a few “musical(fruit)” recommendations. Have a scroll through the taster below and if you fancy a bite, have a think about upgrading your subscription.
Roast Chicken, Tomato Beans & Salsa Verde
A different take to your Sunday roast, if ya like! Slightly lighter, a lot easier, but just as deliciously juicy and comforting.
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