A Tarte of Beans is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for a pie of broad beans, cottage cheese and egg yolks. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of Sauce for A Tarte of Beans.
Take beanes and boyle them tender in fayre water, then take theym oute and breake them in a morter and strayne them with the yolckes of foure egges, curde made of mylke, then ceason it up with suger and halfe a dysche of butter and a lytle synamon and bake it.
To make short paest for tarte
Take fyne floure and a curscy of fayre water and a dysche of swete butter and a lyttel saffron, and the yolkes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye maye.
For the Pastry:
225g plain flour
90g softened butter
2 egg yolks
6 saffron threads ground into 1 tbsp water in a pestle and mortar
Method:
First re-hydrate the beans by placing them in about 600ml of water in a pan. Bring this to boil in a pan then turn off the heat, cover and allow to sit for at least 70 minutes. Then add a further 250ml of water, bring to the boil again and simmer for about 50 minutes until the beans are soft. Once cooked drain the beans and blitz in a food processor.
Allow the bean paste to cool then mix in the egg yolks and add the cottage cheese (which should not be drained). Add the sugar, butter and cinnamon and mix to a smooth paste.
To make the pastry for the pie crust sift the flour into a bowl, add the saffron threads and their steeping water along with the egg yolks and mix together well. First add 3/4 of the softened butter and mix in well. If all the flour does not come together into a dough add a little more butter. Once the dough comes into a ball cut it into two pieces (one slightly larger than the other. Roll the larger piece of dough out and use this to line a 22cm pie dish. Cut off the excess pastry around the edge and fill the middle of the pie with the bean mixture. Next roll the smaller piece of pastry out and use this to place on top of the pie. Use the back of a fork to crimp the upper and lower pieces of pastry together then pierce the top pastry a few times to allow steam to escape as the pie cooks.
Cook in an oven pre-heated to 180°C (350°F/Gas Mark 4) for about 45 minutes or until the upper crust has just turned a golden colour. Brush the top surface of the pie with a mixture of sugar, molten butter and cinnamon. Serve.
