This week’s bean dish was a gratin made with cassoulet beans, fennel bulb, onion, garlic, thyme, and breadcrumbs. Recipe from Rancho Gordo, which I’m sure you read about in the WSJ this weekend.

Amanda and I both loved it. Charlie wouldn’t try it, but he was very curious about what fennel bulb is, how beans grow, and whether or not they are seeds. I’ll take it.

The dish came together quickly since I had cooked beans in the fridge already from the weekend. I cooked a full pound of cassoulets for the cauliflower dish, which was essentially a double batch. Cooking dried beans is the most time consuming part.

When I went to cook this, I discovered that we didn’t have any breadcrumbs on-hand. I thought we had a bag of panko, but I was wrong. What we did have was a large open bag of plain pita chips, so I turned those into crumbs in the food processor.

I served this with Italian sausage links, a simple side salad, and a white wine from Côtes de Provence.

Both the fennel bulb and thyme gave it a great flavor. Even though this had the same base bean as the cauliflower dish, Amanda strongly preferred this one.

I’ll certainly make this again. It is a great way to use extra cooked beans. I think it would also make a nice side at Thanksgiving. I’ll keep it in mind for this November.

What’s next? I’m thinking something with lentils. I have some French-style green lentils on-hand. Maybe Mujadara if I have the time to be adventurous, or lentil soup with sausage and kale if not.