Gigantes Plaki: It’s Greek for “giant flavor.”
This week, we are going full Mediterranean with a classic: baked giant beans in tomato sauce. Gigantes Plaki is rich, comforting, and packed with fiber, plant protein, and olive oil—basically, it’s health food dressed up as comfort food.
Ingredients:
-Extra-virgin olive oil
-1/2 large onion, roughly chopped
-1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
-1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
-2 large garlic cloves, minced
-Kosher salt
-1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juices
-6 Tablespoons (3 fluid ounces) water
-1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus more for garnish
-1/2 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
-3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
-1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
-1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
-1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-1 dried bay leaf
-1 (15-ounce) can butter beans, drained and rinsed (or the largest beans you can find)
-Creamy feta cheese, crumbled
-Rustic bread, for serving
Instructions:
Preheat oven: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F.
-Saute the vegetables: In a large oven-safe skillet set over medium-high heat, add 1/8 cup olive oil. Once the oil shimmers, add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Season with a pinch of salt (about 1/4 teaspoon). Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables soften, 5-7 minutes.
-Add the tomatoes and spices: Add the tomatoes with their juices and the water. Season with another pinch of salt (about 1/4 teaspoon). Add the parsley, thyme, oregano, red pepper flakes, black pepper, cinnamon, and bay leaf.
-Add the beans: Stir in the beans and cook for 5 minutes over high heat. At this point, taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking, then transfer the mixture to the oven and bake until thickened and the top layer turns a light golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes.
-Finish and serve: Remove and discard the bay leaf. Finish the dish with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of parsley, and a good sprinkle of feta. Serve with rustic bread.
All [Music] [Laughter] [Music] right. So, beans just went in. We had cooked down the sauce. We got carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes, and then some spices. We’re just going to get these all covered in the tomato sauce. Then, as soon as we do, we’re going to put this in the oven at 375 for like 20 to 30 minutes. And then that’s going to get all the flavors melted and the beans which were canned originally to kind of get soft and to get velvety and to get the sauce and the beans to just kind of emulsify and become one substance. So that’s the plan. We’re going to set this in the oven, forget it, and see how it comes out. From first glance, it looks really delicious. I love the tomato. It looks like a butter bean, I want to say. And I really like the um feta in it. So, let’s try it. Really good flavor. Um really tastes fresh. I will go Yeah, I could just eat this all day. I’ll go 86. You can see I’ve already dove into the dish here. Um but it’s really phenomenal. I’m about 80% of the way through and my gosh, a little oil and vinegar to top it off. I’m gonna give this give this an 88. I’m with Trevor. I could eat this all day. Super excited to try this dish. Uh, shout out to Dr. Alan Lvin from SQL Medtec cuz this was a uh recommendation from the digital health hobby podcast. We recorded it a few months back. Um, super big fan of Kamada olives and fetto which I added into the dish here. So, I’m going to dig in. This might be my favorite lunch yet. I’m going to go a 9.5. Taking a couple bites, but here we go. I made this dish a lot. I think this is the first time I used carrots and celery. Really good. Well cooked. sauce isn’t too soupy. Randy brought the fresh sourdough bread. I’ll give it an 8 n. Really enjoy it. Yeah, I could eat this every week.
Dining and Cooking