Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Diane Kochilas's book Meze: Small Plates to Savor and Share from the Mediterranean Table. Kochilas also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.
To read more about Kochilas and Greek cuisine, click here.
Giant beans in some form or another are never absent from Greek meze menus. The key to making this dish taste as good as possible is to use high-quality roasted sweet peppers preserved in extra virgin olive oil. I usually make my own oil, and have them on hand. All you need to do is roast the peppers whole under the broiler, let them cool, peel them, and store them in a container in the fridge covered with good olive oil. You can pour a few tablespoons of the pepper-infused oil into the baking dish for added flavor. As for the beans themselves, the trick is to get the texture right. Giant beans need first to be soaked, then boiled, and finally baked. Once done, they should be soft, almost buttery, without being baked to the point that they fall apart.
Kochilas uses dried beans, never "insipid" canned ones. Waiting to salt the cooking water until the beans are almost done prevents them from becoming tough. Look for Greek brands of roasted sweet red peppers, preserved in extra-virgin olive oil. Or roast your own — they'll keep in the refrigerator for a few months, and leftovers make a delicious addition to sandwiches and salads. Pastourma, a cured beef product that's rubbed with spices, is available online at www.greekfoodanddrink.com. For a tasty vegetarian version of this dish, leave out the pastourma and add dried cumin to taste.
