White bean, cucumber summer salad

Lately I have been experimenting with types of salads that are quick to prepare and use some not so usual ingredients. The recipe here creates a "clean" salad for summer that can be a meal in itself or served as a side. Note that the beans in this salad do require soaking, but if planning ahead is a problem, you can substitutute dried beans for canned.

2 cups dried cannellini beans, soaked in cold water overnight
2 cloves garlic
1 cucumber
2 tomatoes
1/2 spanish onion sliced thinly into rings
2 tablespoons of parsley (chopped roughly)
2 tablespoons of cilantro (chopped roughly)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar (balsamic will also do)
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and coarsely ground black pepper

To soak beans, rinse dried beans under cold running water, removing any old, split or blackened beans. Place in large bowl and cover with at least 1 inch with cold water. Leave out overnight. You will find that the beans will absorb a lot of the water. Periodically, drain and refill bowl with clean water - especially in warmer weather.

Cook the drained beans with split garlic cloves in large saucepan of water for about 30-45 minutes or until beans are tender. Drain well and set aside to cool.

While beans are cooking/cooling, layer the onion slices in a bowl, sprinkling each layer with salt and set aside until ready to combine all ingredients.

Dice cucumber and tomatoes into 1/2 inch squares and roughly chop the parsley and cilantro. There's no need to peel or seed the cucumber as the green skin provides a color contrast to the white beans.

When ready to serve salad, rinse onion rings under cold running water to remove salt. Squeeze out any remaining liquid. Combine all ingredients into bowl - beans, cucumber, tomotoes, onion, parsley, cilantro. Drizzle combined olive oil, vinegar and juice of the lemon over salad and toss gently. Season to taste.

If the salad is a meal in itself. Spread some baby spinach leaves around a flat plate and pile salad in the middle. Garnish with spring of cilantro.

Posted by dvenuto at July 07, 2002 03:01 PM | TrackBack