Ingredients:
- 1 lb white beans
- Half a head of garlic
- 1 onion
- 2 gourmet sausages
- Spices: salt and pepper
- 1 cup vegetable oil
Preparation:
- Place the beans in a pot with water. Bring the water to a boil. Discard the boiling water, and replace with cold water. Repeat more than three times (this helps eliminate the gases; I usually do this five times, just to make sure). Separately keep two cups of water from the last boil - we'll need it to adjust the consistency of the final spread. Ground the boiled beans, and mix with about half a cup (or even a cup of the water they boiled in).
- Separately, slice half the onion.
- Fry the onion slices on high heat in the vegetable oil until they turn yellowish-brown. Remove and store them separately - we'll use them later for decoration.
- Finely dice the other half of the onion, and fry it in the vegetable oil.
- When the diced onion starts changing color, add the mashed beans. Add salt and pepper to taste (don't overdo it: you can always add more later, if needed). Mix the mashed beans with the oil and the diced onions, until a uniform spread forms. When that is done, remove it from heat.
- Grind the garlic, and mix in with the spread. If you don't like the taste of garlic that much, either use less, or add it earlier, while cooking (together with the onions, for example) - this will make it lose its strong flavor.
- My recommendation: serve the bean spread at room temperature, either on top of toasted bread, or as a side dish to grilled meat or sausages. Aside from the bean taste, I particularly like this recipe for its garlic flavor, as well as for the texture of the crunchy bits of diced onion within.
Presentation:
- Place the bean spread in a bowl.
- Use the fried onion slices to decorate the spread - they taste really well in combination with the bean spread.
- Chop or slice the sausages, fry or grill them, and use them to decorate the spread. They can also be used by the guests in combination with the spread - the spicy or smoked ones compliment this recipe particularly well.
- Use a few fresh dill leaves to further add some color to the dish.
- Make sure you have some (toasted) slices of bread handy for the guests.
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