In gaming, you can ‘double win’, where you play once, but win twice. A similar sort of thrill can exist in the kitchen (hear me out, please) when you cook one ingredient and it forms two edible delights – such as in today’s recipe.
The tomatoes are roasted with chipotle and plenty of oil, and the sweet, concentrated, tomatoey oil goes straight into the butter beans, which are then whizzed up into a silky and flavourful mash.
All that’s left for you to do is to make the quinoa. It’s easy cooking for these summer months – cooking one thing to make two. In short, it’s a double-win meal!
Chipotle tomatoes with butter beans and quinoa
The chipotle flakes (I use Bart’s) give a much better flavour than the variable chipotle pastes, but if you can only find paste, add vinegar to taste at the end.
Prep 15 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 4
1kg ripe vine tomatoes, quartered
80ml olive oil, plus extra to serve
1 tbsp chipotle flakes
2 tbsp red-wine vinegar
2 tsp soft brown sugar
Salt
300g quinoa
1 tbsp vegetable bouillon, suitable for vegans
2 x 400g cans butter beans, drained and rinsed
100g rocket
½ lemon, juiced
Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. In a large bowl, combine the tomatoes, olive oil, chipotle, vinegar, sugar and half a teaspoon of salt, and toss to coat evenly. Arrange the tomato quarters on a medium-sized baking tray, giving them plenty of room between each other, and put the bowl to one side. Roast for 35-40 minutes, until the tomatoes are glossy and slightly charred.
Meanwhile, boil the kettle and put the quinoa in a saucepan with a quarter-teaspoon of salt and the bouillon. Add 750ml boiling water to the pan, turn the heat on to medium, pop the lid on and leave to simmer for 20 minutes. After this time, turn off the heat, but do not remove the lid for 10 minutes, so the quinoa can absorb all the liquid.
Once the tomatoes are cooked, put a sieve over the large bowl you used before, and drain, so all the flavoured oil ends up in the bowl. Tip the liquid into a blender – not the tomatoes! – add the butter beans and half a teaspoon of salt, and whizz until super-creamy; it should be the texture of hummus.
Using a fork, fluff up the quinoa and distribute between four plates. Now spoon on the bean mash, then layer the rocket, tomatoes and more rocket over each plate. Drizzle a little lemon juice and more olive oil on to the leaves, and serve.
Meera Sodha’s new book, East: 120 Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes from Bangalore to Beijing, is published next week by Penguin at £20. To pre-order a copy for the special price of £15, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.
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