I love Greek food, the simpler the better. A plateful of char-grilled lamb chops with dried origano, lemon and garlic eaten with chilled wine at an outdoor taverna is pretty close to perfection. To round the meal off a little I'd order potatoes baked in chunks with the same flavourings as an accompaniment, Greek salad, and gigantes beans.
The latter can be bought at the supermarket in rather stingy jars that cost about £2.50. Very nice, very easy to present as part of a mezze, but given it's a few beans and some tomatoey sauce Jack's bargain with the family cow was not much worse, so I had a go at making my own. They turned out to be, if not magical, pretty delicious.
The tomato sauce was just a tin of pulped toms, 35p from Lidl, some ground cumin and pepper, dried origano, 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika and 1/2 tsp of sugar, plus four cloves of garlic bashed under a wide knife-blade and added to the pot to bubble gently for 10 minutes. Two tins of butter beans were needed to retain the right bean/sauce ratio, heated through in the same pot then seasoned before serving. That gave us a warm version with Saturday's BBQ and cold with Sunday lunch. Butter beans at 55p a tin, so the full cost of the two servings (both more generous than one of those jars) was say £1.60.
They were not exactly like the shop-bought ones, as butter beans are not gigantic, but were still reminiscent of taverna offerings, especially as an accompaniment to lamb chops on the barbie. I'd use less sugar next time, and add some thyme leaves, but there will definitely be a next time.
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