Etli Kuru Fasulye (Turkish white beans with lamb)

This delicious winter dish needs a little bit of planning.

Personally İ normally can not decide what İ will cook the next day, but for this dish to be successful you have to soak the beans the night before, that is all actually.

This recipe is often cooked with dice of lamb, but İ prefer to use 2 lamb shanks, cooked together with the beans you get such a delicious full flavor (plus afterwards the dogs are very happy with the bones!)

 

What you need:

• 500 grams dry white beans
• little bit olive oil for cooking (in Turkey that is Riviera Zeytın yağ)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 2 lamb shanks or 250 dice of lamb meat
• 1 table spoons tomato paste
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 orange chopped up in small bits
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• 1 teaspoon spicy pepper flakes
• 1,5 liter of hot water
• pepper and salt to taste

 

Preparation:

Soak 500 grams of dried white beans overnight.

For cooking the next day, use a pot that you can also use in the oven, so full metal.

First rinse the soaked beans and preheat the oven on 180°C

Then heat the olive oil a bit (be careful as olive oil burns quickly), fry the lamb shanks on all sides a bit until they have a nice color. Take them out and let them wait on the side. Fry the onion in the same oil until soft, add the garlic (İ prefer the full cloves in this dish), the tomato paste and the diced tomatoes – in summer İ would only use fresh tomatoes but in winter a can will do.

Stir and mix this all nicely together.

Then stir in the beans, the chopped orange, the hot water, the spicy pepper, thyme, salt and pepper and the hot water. All mix well, put the two lamb shanks in the mixture that they are under the bean mixture and put it in the oven without covering it. Let it cook for about 3 to 4 hours, every now and then stir and in the end if it gets too dry you can add a little water.

Serve with white rice and Afiyet Olsun!