About the Recipe:
In the spirit of forging new, more sustainable traditions, I’m advocating for more beans on this season’s holiday tables. These gigante beans cook up a tender, meaty delight—satisfying both the craving for a starchy chew and a more satiating protein rich bite. While the formula of aromatics might vary from pot to pot, my non-negotiables for a delicious batch of brothy beans are: plenty of olive oil and salt added from the beginning, the presence of at least one allium (be it garlic, shallots, onion, etc.), and a bay leaf. Everything else is extra credit, and particular spices or aromatics can help you lean the flavor in one direction or the other (like the inclusion of smoked paprika and cumin in these brothy black beans, for instance). Once the beans are fully cooked and tender, I always add a splash of vinegar to lift and brighten.
In this case, once the beans are cooked, they’re strained of their liquid and tossed in a bit of lemon and olive oil–helping to ensure that each bean is fully dressed and craveable. The beans are then scattered with parsley and lemon zest studded chopped walnuts and draped generously with a tin of Cantabrian anchovies. Serve alongside a hunk of bread and a crisp, leafy salad, or with whatever classics you can’t bear to be without for your own holiday traditions.
About the Chef:
Vilda Gonzalez is a chef, recipe developer, and creative. Her work takes many forms, from cooking private dinners, to feeding big groups on retreat, developing recipes for brands, teaching cooking classes, and advocating for more sustainable local food systems, but the through line is constant: she believes that food should be delicious, flavorful, and indulgent, while also being deeply nourishing, sourced with integrity, and inherently healthful. Her mission is to rewire our collective relationship to what eating well truly means, through the lens of seasonality, sensuality, and intuitive home cooking.
