Week 48: Gillygate Bean Casserole

The book: My green recipe folder

The recipe: no. 16, "Gillygate Bean Casserole"

I feel a bit sorry for food stylists. I mean, obviously it's kind of hilarious that there's a profession called "food stylist" in the first place, but still, it must be a thankless task at times. For every glistening summer vegetable to show off in all its colourful glory, there's an unforgiving meatloaf or a lumpy slab of grey fish. And for every luxurious chocolate mousse or succulent, juicy burger, there's a bean casserole.

All I'm saying, folks, is don't expect too much on the visual front this week.

We're back with the recipes my mum armed me with when I first moved to Germany, and this week's random.org choice is exactly the kind of undemanding, cheap and hearty dish you might expect a recent student to welcome with open arms. So what do you reckon - did I ever get round to actually making it during my five-year stint in Mainz and Hamburg?

Maybe it's the name. Gillygate is a pleasant if unassuming thoroughfare in York, and I was exploring the world of Rheinstraße and Jungfernstieg at the time. Besides, it's easy to be lazy about cooking in a country where currywurst and döner are available on every corner.

Why is this recipe named after Gillygate, anyway? The street has shops, of course, but no bean emporiums as far as I'm aware. I have to assume this is something my mum randomly snipped out of a local paper many moons ago (and subsequently typed up), because literally the only reference I can find on the entire internet comes from the October 2013 edition of Open Field, "the monthly publication of the parish of Laxton & Moorhouse". Which sounds like it should be supplying the headlines for the missing words round on Have I Got News For You, let's be honest. Anyway, it seems someone made it for a WI bake-off that month and it went down well (helped, perhaps, by being actually vegetarian, unlike the leek pie which "contained beef" - ahh, country life).

Anyway, the provenance of the recipe may remain a mystery but anything that gets the nod from the WI sounds promising to me, so let's see where this blast from the past takes us...

The prep: Never mind Nigella and her belief that we all have merguez, halloumi and flame-roasted peppers on standby at all times - this is the epitome of a "store cupboard meal", so much so that I barely have to buy any of the ingredients at all. It helps that there's a certain degree of freedom on the bean front - I opt for some black-eyed beans and a tin of "three-bean salad", though haricots or anything else would be fine really. Other than that, I need to get some chutney in (which is fine, since there's never a bad time to have caramelised onion products in the house) and blitz some old bread to make some wholemeal breadcrumbs, and that's about it.

Thus, with the beans duly drained...

Good for your heart

...we're ready to get started.

The making: Butter is melted in a saucepan and a large onion is sweated down "for about 6 mins or until soft". I double that, if not more, because (a) I'm not in a rush and (b) yum. Wholemeal flour, potent mustard and some ground ginger are stirred in, then milk is gradually added until a "smooth sauce" emerges - smooth but very thick, let it be noted.

This is then supposed to be poured over the beans in a casserole dish, but pourability is not high on the attributes of this particular "sauce", so I stir the beans into the pan instead.

Vomitastic

Herbs (oregano, thyme, basil) are stirred into the mix along with some brown sugar and the aforementioned chutney, then the whole lot is slopped into a dish and topped with a mixture of grated cheddar, parsley and breadcrumbs.

And that's your lot, more or less - it goes into the oven for 35 minutes and comes out looking like this:

...which is about as "stylish" as this particular food stylist is going to manage on this occasion.

The eating: Inspired by vague childhood memories (and possibly also by the "leek" casserole in Open Field), I decide we need to add some meat to proceedings, so I haphazardly grill some frankfurters as an accompaniment of sorts. They look a bit sad alongside the served-up casserole, which predictably takes on the appearance of pigswill, but so be it.

Wurst. Styling. Ever.

The main thing is it tastes good. And it does - really good, actually. It's nothing out of the ordinary, but the filling manages to feel quite decadent and creamy even though it doesn't contain any cream, while the crunch of the topping and the wholemeal herbiness of the contents gives it a rustic appeal that - now that I think about it - really ought to be tailor-made for a Nottinghamshire WI group.

That's not one of the more obvious compliments I've ever paid a recipe, but let's roll with it.

So, yep. Not a sophisticated meal by any stretch of the imagination, but a hearty, filling and dead simple one that anyone could make (why isn't this gracing the pages of How To Boil An Egg, really?). If your kids are of or approaching university age, you could do far worse than pack them off to pastures new with this recipe in their arsenal. They might even get round to making it one day. Then again...

One-word verdict: Substantial.