You bake beans the size of a thumb in tomato so olive-oily it stains the plate. They slump in a sauce that has caught at the edges, sweet with onion, bright with parsley and dill. This is Lenten food that tastes like a feast, and you will want bread and a slab of feta.
Gigantes — those fat white beans of the north — are baked plaki, in an open dish. Fasting days forbade the meat; they never forbade the oil. This is what a Greek kitchen does with beans, tomato, and time.
Bake them uncovered at 350°F until the top caramelizes and the oil pools darkly at the rim. They improve overnight. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Method
- 01
Drain the soaked beans, put them in a pot, and cover with fresh water. Bring to a simmer and cook until they are just tender, 45 to 60 minutes — they should yield to a bite but still hold their shape, because they have another hour in the oven ahead of them. Drain, but rescue a cup of the cooking liquid. You'll need it to loosen the sauce later.
- 02
In a wide pan, warm half the olive oil and cook the onions until they are soft and beginning to sweeten, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and stir until you smell it, then the tomato paste, and let that cook a minute so it loses its raw edge. Tip in the crushed tomatoes, oregano, sugar, salt, and pepper, and simmer 10 minutes. The sauce should look glossy and smell of oregano and sweet onion.
- 03
Fold the drained beans into the sauce along with the parsley, the dill, the remaining oil, and a splash of that reserved bean liquid. You want them sitting in a generous, oily sauce — not swimming, not dry. Tip everything into a baking dish in an even layer. Stand back and look: there should be oil pooling at the edges already, and that oil is not a mistake; it is the dish.
- 04
Slide the dish into a 350°F oven, uncovered, and bake 50 to 60 minutes, waiting for the top to caramelize and catch in places, and for the oil to pool darkly at the edges. The beans will slump a little and the sauce will thicken around them. If it looks dry at the 40-minute mark, add a splash more bean liquid, but don't cover it — the browning is the point.
- 05
Bring them to the table warm or at room temperature — they are Lenten food that tastes like a feast either way. Set out a slab of feta and a loaf of bread, and let people help themselves. The oil will still be pooling at the rim, staining the plate, which is as it should be. They improve overnight, so you may as well make them a day ahead.
