Comfort food lunch box: homemade beans on toast

When I was about eight years old I’d insist on having beans on toast nearly every day after school. Piping hot beans heaped on top of golden slabs of toast with little melting pools of butter. Then I discovered cheese could be added and piled it on with glee. This simple dish – if you could call it a dish – is warm, reassuring and pure comfort. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of food to comfort and reassure us. Food should be about pleasure and enjoyment. Even if that enjoyment is from eating something cooked in a very basic way. Not something to feel guilty about. Too often perhaps we feel under pressure to use the fanciest ingredients or complicated cooking techniques.

One of my favourite things to do in the kitchen is to thinly slice shallots and gently sweat them in oil. As they cook slowly and become translucent they take on a sweetness and flavour that can be used as a base for so many meals. Or watching butter foaming in a pan as it starts to turn noisette and you get the nutty smell of digestive biscuits. Or making mashed potato with cream infused with bay leaf, thyme, garlic and peppercorns. This is what the joy of cooking and eating to me is about. Food that is easy to make and is made to be enjoyed.

For our lunch box this week I’m recreating that childhood favourite – beans on toast – with borlotti and cannellini beans. Of course you could always just open a tin of beans and pop some toast in the toaster. But there is a certain pleasure in creating your own comfort food. Chorizo or bacon or eggs could be added also. I’ve kept this version straightforward as an homage to the original. Or perhaps I’m being a little lazy. Either way it tastes great and brings me back to that kitchen table all those years ago.

80g dried beans or half a 400g tin of cooked beans (you could try haricot, cannellini, butter, kidney, borlotti or broad beans)

2 gloves garlic, crushed

Half a 400g tin chopped tomatoes

30ml red wine vinegar

1 tsp. dark brown sugar

1 tbsp. tomato purée

2 slices bread (soda or sourdough works well)

Parmesan (as much as you like)

Small handful fresh herbs (parsley/marjoram/thyme)

Sea salt, cracked black pepper to season

Cost £3.40

If using dried beans soak them overnight (or for at least 8 hours) in plenty of cold water. Drain and rinse. Put in a large pan and cover with fresh water. Bring to the boil and skim off the scum that comes to the top. Change the water and bring to the boil again. Reduce the heat and simmer until just tender (may take up to 1 hour depending on which beans you use).

Heat a saucepan on a medium heat and gently cook the crushed garlic. Add the chopped tomatoes, red wine vinegar, sugar and tomato purée and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Season to taste. Blend until smooth using a hand blender or leave whole if you prefer. Heat the beans in the sauce. Toast the bread, pile the beans and sauce on top and finish with grated parmesan and chopped fresh herbs.

Laoise Casey is a chef de partie at Paradise Garage in Bethnal Green and the author of cuisinegenie.ie. Follow her on Twitter @cuisine_genie and Instagram @laoisecooks. Laoise uses Box Appetit lunch boxes.