Po staropolsku means in an old Polish style and this often includes using prunes and honey.
Originally this recipe would have been made with dried beans soaked overnight.
To make life easier I usually use tinned beans such as haricot, cannellini (white kidney beans) or black-eyed beans.
Haricot beans in Polish are called fasola jaś which means Johnny bean. In the British TV comedy programme Mr Bean, which is very popular in Poland, our hero is called Jaś Fasola.
Ingredients
2 tins of beans (haricot, canellini or similar)
250g smoked bacon
2 onions
12 soft – no need to soak – prunes
2-3 tablespoons of plain flour
3 tablespoons of honey
Sunflower oil for frying
Ground black pepper
Marjoram or Italian herbs
Quarters of lemon to serve
Method
Put the prunes in a dish and cover them with boiling water and leave for around 15 minutes.
Remove the prunes (save the liquor) and chop them into into quarters.
Pre-heat the oven to GM 3 – 160°C
Chop the bacon into small squares and fry these up in a little sunflower oil.
Chop the onions into small pieces and add them to the bacon and fry them all up together.
Lightly brown the flour and add the liquor from the prunes and any more water needed to make a pourable sauce.
Add the fried bacon and onions, honey, ground pepper and marjoram.
Drain the beans from the cans and put them into an oven proof dish (one that has a lid).
Add the bacon mixture to the beans and mix together.
Put the lid on the dish and cook in the oven for at least 1 hour, I often cook this for a lot longer as I like the beans quite soft but take care that I top up the liquid if necessary.
Serve each portion with 1 or 2 quarters of lemon – the squeezed juice adds a little zest to beans.
Really amazing recipe. Very interesting and looks delicious 👍
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A couple of other bean recipes comming up on the next couple of months but this one is the most unusual.
Poles love prunes … in Polish they are just called dried plums … very popular in the winter months and plums will often feature on Wigilia (Christmas Eve) … a very important meal. I have a post on it.
Thanks for all your likes and encouraging comments.
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