HOMEMADE BACON BAKED BEANS
Serves 4-6
Pulled from the freezer or fridge, these beans, topped with an egg and served with fresh bread, make a good meal in minutes. They do, however, take hours to cook from scratch. It’ll take you about 4 hours, but you can be asleep for most of this.
200g (7oz/1 cup) dried cannellini or white/northern beans
2 brown onions
2 garlic cloves
1 sage sprig
2 teaspoons salt
400g (14oz) slab bacon or speck, cut into 2-3cm (¾–1¼ inch) chunks
400g (14oz/1 ⅔ cups) tinned chopped tomatoes
1-2 tablespoons treacle
Put the beans in a bowl and cover with cold water. Set aside to soak for at least 5 hours or preferably overnight. If you haven’t soaked the beans you can still make this recipe, the beans will just take longer to cook. Either way, rinse the beans and drain well.
Peel both onions and cut one of them into dice and set aside. Place the beans, the whole onion, garlic, sage and salt in a large saucepan and pour in
