My granny used to serve up butter beans and I hated them with a passion.  As a kid I didn’t find the taste offensive,  it was the texture which bothered me.  For more than 30 (ahem) years I have declared butter beans as an evil food with a texture like ‘material’.  Even I am not sure what that means, but I have stuck to this bizarre belief for a very long time.

In the same month that I decided sweetcorn was not actually the food of the Devil (again something I had stuck to since I was about four) I decide to give butter beans a chance. I found this Chorizo and Bean Chilli recipe in a Weight Watchers cook book which B bought me (was he hinting at something one wonders!).  It  included the dastardly beans and although I thought about substituting them, I didn’t.

And who would believe it, they were really rather splendid.  Tasting them afresh after so long I couldn’t quite work out  where my ‘material texture’ claims came from.  They are I declare,  beautifully soft and velvety  buttons of goodness.

I changed this recipe a little bit to suit my tastes, first adding more chorizo than is called for.  I love chorizo and therefore don’t like when recipes are mean about it.  I also thought it was a sin not to add paprika to this dish.  If you are using Hot Spanish Paprika perhaps halve the quantity – the heat in that stuff gave me quite a shock. I also added a bit of tomato puree just because and it worked well so I have kept that in too.

This is an incredibly comforting dish which is super quick to make and has become one of our weekly staples.  Serve with a nice hunk of bread and butter and a lovely glass of red wine.

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INGREDIENTS

400g cherry tomatoes, tablespoon of dried herbs, 1 400g can of kidney beans, 1 400g can of butter beans, 1 generous teaspoon of paprika, 2 red chillies,  tbs tomato puree, 250g of Chorizo sausage sliced into coins, 100ml water.

METHOD

1.  Blitz the cherry tomatoes and dried herbs in a food processor so that you have a pink foamy sauce (looks a bit odd at this stage of the game)

2.  Pop this into a saucepan and add the beans, chorizo, chilli, paprika and tomato puree

3.  Add 100ml of water

4. Bring to the boil and then cover and simmer for around 15/20 minutes

5.  Add corriander and serve