These are great to go with most smoked meat and are ideally cooked in the Actifry. They take a fair while to cook and they need to be regularly stirred and the Actifry made this an incredibly simple one pan dish.

Approx. 8 servings as a side dish. Takes about 3 hours cooking time but this varies depending on the amount of moisture you want removed.

Ingredients

  • 2 rashers bacon, or 1 chorizo chopped
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic chopped
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 x 450g tins of butter beans or any other in the cupboard, drained and rinsed
  • 500 ml chicken stock
  • 2 tbs worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tbs tomato sauce or paste
  • 1 tin crushed tomatoes
  • Additional seasoning  to taste (extra cumin, salt, pepper, chilli)
  • small mild fresh chilli chopped finely for serving (optional)

Method

  1. Cook the bacon or chorizo in the actifry until it starts to brown and the fat starts to melt. Add the onion and cook until softened.Add the garlic, cumin, bay leaves, and black pepper and cook a further 2 minutes.
  2. Add the chicken broth, Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce/paste, tomatoes, and the beans. Cook for about 2 hours in 30 minute lots.
  3. Add more liquid as the cook progresses and towards the end edit the flavours if necessary.
  4. It is cooked when the flavours have soaked into the beans and the level of liquid is the way you want to serve it. Once the flavour is right I keep cooking until most of the liquid has been absorbed and they are pretty dry.
  5. If you are in a hurry you could smash a few beans to thicken it.
  6. Serve with the finely chopped fresh chilli sprinkled on top if desired.