Cooking With Our Guests, Greek Recipes, Vasiliki
Vasiliki’s Greek Flat Beans with Lamb Recipe
The KO kids (the children, nephews and nieces of the KO Team) are always excited about filming days, as they get to enjoy the day’s spoils. The day we filmed Vasiliki’s Flat Beans with Lamb was a Wednesday and Ilyana, Christine’s youngest enjoyed the dish so much she even offered a favourable review, “The meat is really tender, the beans are really sweet, the sauce goes well with the meat and the beans… and so does the bread… so I rate it a 10/10!… Can you make this dish EVERY Wednesday?” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves!
Vasiliki’s Greek Flat Beans with Lamb Recipe
Tender and juicy lamb with sweet and morish flat beans, in a luscious tomato sauce.
Ingredients
For the flat beans with lamb
- 800 g lamb shoulder deboned
- 800 g beans flat
- 2 medium brown onions chopped
- 1 garlic clove crushed
- salt
- pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried chillies
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste level
- 1 cup tomato puree
- 1 bunch parsley finely chopped
- 1/2 cup olive oil extra virgin
- water
Instructions
Preparing the ingredients
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Wash the flat beans. Top and tail the ends. Cut the beans in half widthways and for the wider beans, lengthways as well. Set aside.
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Wash the lamb and pat it dry. Trim off the excess fat. Chop the lamb into pieces of roughly 6cm thickness and set aside.
Cooking the flat beans with lamb
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Heat the olive oil in a large (approximately 5 litre) pot over a high flame. Add the lamb pieces and sear them on both sides. Add the onions and garlic and fry them until they soften and brown a little. Gently stir the ingredients to prevent them from sticking to the pot.
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Add the remaining ingredients to the pot in the following order, gently mixing with each addition: flat beans, salt, pepper, dried chillies, tomato paste, tomato puree, parsley and enough water to totally immerse the ingredients in the pot.
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Keep the pot on a high flame until the fluids come to a gentle boil. Then reduce the heat to a low flame, place the lid over the pot either slightly ajar or with the vent hole open and gently cook for 1½ – 2 hours. After the first hour of cooking, check the fluid level in the pot. If the fluid level is low, add more boiled water to allow the dish to cook a little longer. After 1½ – 2 hours of cooking, all of the fluid within the pot should have cooked off, the meat should fall apart easily and the beans should be soft. If the ingredients have cooked through but there is excess fluid, turn up the flame, remove the lid from the pot and continue to cook until the fluids have completely reduced.
Serving the flat beans with lamb
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Flat beans with lamb are best served warm, with feta cheese and crusty bread to soak up the delicious sauce.