Some years ago, I cooked for a society wedding and, at the client’s request, served a mixture of red and yellow cherry pear tomatoes with basil and olive oil on bruschettas. It was a different starter to a wedding feast and I was nonplussed by Tatler magazine’s reference to the offering as “Rowley Leigh’s tomatoes on toast”. They would have been even more scathing had I offered a bruschetta with borlotti beans: even I might have managed a wry smile at the mention of “beans on toast”.

Italian beans on toast is a different proposition. The toast is stale-ish bread, grilled, preferably, over coals, rubbed with sea salt, a little dried rosemary and a clove of garlic and doused in olive oil. And the beans are something else.

We don’t do fresh beans in Britain. We do green beans, French and runner: we do broad, or fava beans. What we don’t often see is a fresh borlotti bean – or cannellini or, in France, a coco de Paimpol – when the beans have fattened to a creamy fullness and their pods become a pretty but dry husk. We can get these beans in dried form and, if they are cooked with care, they can be very good. But they are not as good as the violet speckled beans that emerge from the attractive pink and cream pods of a fresh borlotti bean. The colour quickly turns to the same brown as in the dried variety, but the creamy texture and nutty flavour are unmatched. They give beans on toast a whole new meaning.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais
rowley.leigh@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/leigh

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Bruschetta with borlotti

Cooking borlotti beans
All fresh beans can be cooked in this fashion: they will never need soaking if fresh. Salting too early is a mistake: the skins toughen and become indigestible, so always season after cooking.

Ingredients
500g podded borlotti beans
1 onion, studded with 3 cloves
1 stick of celery
1 carrot
3 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
1 large sprig of thyme
100ml extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon

Method
● Pod the beans, wash them and put in a pot with plenty of cold water. Bring to the boil, turn off the heat and leave to stand for 10 minutes. Pour off the water, rinse the beans briefly and then re-cover with cold water. Add all the vegetables and herbs and bring gently to the boil, do not salt. Simmer gently for one hour, ensuring that the beans remain covered in water.
● By that time they should be very plump, tender and have absorbed most of the water. Remove them from the stove and let them cool down in their cooking liquid. Discard the vegetables.
● If serving the beans cold, they should be dressed and seasoned with best olive oil, lemon juice, milled pepper and plenty of sea salt while still warm.

Bruschetta with borlotti beans, fennel and olives
Either a substantial starter or a lunch or supper dish. Serves six.

Ingredients
6 large slices of strong country bread
200ml olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
300g of cooked borlotti beans
2 heads Florentine fennel
1 lemon
100ml extra virgin olive oil
1 tbs black olives 

Method
● Slice the fennel into rounds the thickness of a pound coin. Chop the green tops separately. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and add the sliced fennel, cooking for a minute so that it has softened but still has a little bite. Drain and dress in a bowl with the green tops, the juice of the lemon, plenty of milled pepper, a little sea salt and the extra virgin olive oil. Remove the stones from the olives and mix with the fennel.
● Brush the bread with the olive oil, until it is soaked but not dripping. Proceeding cautiously, lay the bread on a hot grill. The moment it is well marked, turn at 90 degrees to produce a criss-cross pattern and then turn and repeat. Peel the garlic and, as soon as it is bearable to do so, rub the hot bread with the garlic. Place a pile of the beans on each bruschetta and spoon the fennel and olive salad on top. Serve immediately.