MARINATED BUTTER BEAN SALAD WITH FENNEL, CELERY, AND CASTELVETRANOS

Marinated Butter Bean Salad With Fennel, Celery, And Castelvetranos

We all need to be eating more butter beans. Also known as lima beans, butter beans have a beautifully creamy interior, and using canned beans makes this salad a quick prep. I dream of a day when this is the standard side at a summer picnic. Prepare this in advance and serve at room temperature (or cold!) on a hot day and it will be delightful. As the beans sit in the marinade, they absorb the flavorful goodness. This can also be served as a main for 2 people. 

Ingredients

  • 1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced

  • 1 one small red onion, thinly sliced 

  • 2 stalks celery, thinly sliced

  • 20 castelvetrano (or other green) olives, smashed and roughly chopped

  • 2- 15.5 oz cans butter / lima beans OR sub cannellini beans, drained and rinsed. 

  • 1 lemon, zested, then juiced.

  • ½ cup olive oil

  • 2 garlic clove, finely minced or microplaned

  • 1/2 bunch parsley

  • 2 tbsp dried wild oregano (go for the sicilian or calabrian kind that comes dried on the stem)!

  • 2 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS:

  1. First zest the lemon into a small bowl, then juice it into another bowl with the thinly sliced red onions and a pinch of salt. Let sit for at least 10 minutes while you work on step 2.

  2. Pour the olive oil, garlic clove, lemon zest, salt, and oregano into a large bowl and mix to combine. 

  3. To the bowl with the olive oil mixture, add the beans, fennel, olives, and celery, then stir to combine. 

  4. After the onions have marinated for at least 10 minutes, add them to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients, using a slotted spoon to leave the liquid.

  5. Serve and eat at room temperature – the flavor will improve as it sits – adding parsley just before serving. 

Sam’s Science Tip:

SAM’S SCIENCE TIP

For a very similar reason to adding lemon juice to garlic, letting the onion sit in the lemon juice will mellow their pungency. Onions also contain the enzyme in the class of alliinases, just like garlic, and when you cut them open, the enzyme acts on sulfur containing precursor molecules and forms sulfenic acid, which giving onions their pungency by irritating the inside of your mouth. However, just like garlic, this enzymatic reaction is pH dependent, so letting the onions hang out in an acid like lemon juice will stop the reaction and allow you to have delightful onions slices in your salad.

References:

HORTSCIENCE 28(1):60. 1993. Streamlining Onion Pungency Analyses


Sam Lopane