Fagioli al fiasco

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atomicsmoke

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
Apr 3, 2014
4,313
1,235
Toronto, Canada
No, it doesn't mean failed beans.

I got some fresh romano beans from the farmers market...i thought they would taste nice cooked this way.
Fagioli al fiasco - beans cooked in flask....tuscan recipe.

The origin of the dish it says to be from when people would use the empty chianti wine flasks to cook beans. Just before going to bed, one would put beans in the flask (one by one - narrow neck), with sage leaves, whole garlic cloves, olive oil and topped with water. Loosely covered it would sit in the dying embers of the stove used both for cooking and heating. By morning they had a meal.

Good cold on it's own or as a side.

I tried three combinations: classic, with liquid smoke and with chunks of smoked pancetta.

I used mason jars for flasks.

All assembled
20171001_172919.jpg

The jar on the right has some cooking water from the previous batch.

After 1.5h at 270F in the oven
20171001_202949-1.jpg


They were all tasty: the clasic allows you to enjoy the taste of fresh beans. The liquid smoke adds a little flavour. The smoked pancetta offers the whole range.

I know....it's just beans...but i thought it's a cool way to cook and sometimes simple can be great.

For dry beans you would need more water, unless you soak them first.

Keeps well in the fridge for at least a week.

My kid wants to take some jars when returning to Univ.
 
Mmmm Mmmm... it certainly is that season of the year for beans! Is there a benefit to the cooking in glass than say a crock pot? Obviously other than the container portability aspect?
 
I don't think there is any benefit when cooking in glass. Other than having less to clean if you don't plan to eat imediately.
 
Interesting. Never heard of this before. Obviously they carried bigger flasks than I carried in my drinking days. LOL.
Like Richie I'd have to use dried beans.
Half way thru your post I was thinking they'd be good with some ham thrown in and like magic you did just that.
Definitely worth a POINT.
Gary
 
I don't think there is any benefit when cooking in glass. Other than having less to clean if you don't plan to eat imediately.
You were doing a traditional way to cook them right ?
I bet those are good . Nice job .
 
That's neat. sounds doable.
You could use a canning rack or something to keep the jars off the bottom of a kettle and do them in a water bath in the oven or a smoker for an hour or 2. keep enough liquid in the bath to keep the jars from breaking.
 
Canning jars can take pressure cooker temps. That's at least 250F. I am confident they can take the extra 25F for oven cooking. Or one can turn down the temperature and cook longer.
Cooking directly on coals. ..that's a different story.
I did not preheat the oven. Turned it on with the jars in it.
 
Nowadays bakeries in the region use the residual heat in their ovens to cook beans in terracotta pots which they sell the next day.
 
Nowadays bakeries in the region use the residual heat in their ovens to cook beans in terracotta pots which they sell the next day.
When I lived in a small village in Germany (Graffenstein/Holzhausen) in the mornings the bakery delivered fresh Brötchen or bread rolls to your porch and left them for your breakfast. Later the women took dough to the bakery to have them bake in their ovens. was pretty cool.. Also if you had cows you could take your milk to a place in the town on a cart. The milk truck came to collect the cans and gave you another one clean. lol
 
I was one of those people taking the dough to the bakery as a young lad. Once a week. No one thought days old bread was stale.
 
Nice job smoke,

I've made Fagioli al Fiasco a number of times, but never in an old wine bottle, and I've always used pre-soaked dried beans.

I typically stick with the classic ingredients of beans, oil, fresh sage and whole garlic cloves, but on occasion I might add whole peppercorns, and/or very thinly sliced red onion.

I once asked an old guy in Florence how he prepared them and he simply said to cook them over a very low simmer so the beans don't crack and they were done when no liquid remained in the cooking vessel. His kitchen, like every other Tuscan kitchen I've ever seen has a terracotta clay crock dedicated to cooking beans known as a coccio, and apparently, the clay is porous enough to allow for very slow release of steam and evaporation.

When I prepare them I put all of the the ingredients in a glass wine decanter, plug the top with a cotton ball, and cook them in a 250F oven. When done, I discard the sage, garlic, and peppercorns, add some salt and freshly ground pepper, and a little fresh olive oil. On occasion, I might add a few dashes of real aged balsamic vinegar. Great as a side dish, or even better at room temperature with some crusty bread as an appetizer.
 
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