Roast tomatoes, butter beans and gochujang

Roast tomatoes, butter beans and gochujang

Description: A deep, fruity warmth here from the marriage of cumin and gochujang. The onions need a long, slow cooking to reveal their sweetness. A little patience will be rewarded.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 220C/gas mark 8.
  2. Put the tomatoes in a roasting tin, just touching, and trickle over the olive oil. Season with salt and a grinding of black pepper.
  3. Bake for 40 minutes or until the tomato skins have browned on their shoulders and there is a generous layer of juices in the bottom of the tin.
  4. While the tomatoes cook, get on with the sauce: peel and chop the onions.
  5. Warm the oil in a wide saucepan, add the onions and let them cook for about 20 minutes, stirring regularly, so they are soft, translucent and honey-coloured.
  6. Peel and thinly slice the garlic and stir into the onions. Roughly chop the tomatoes. Stir the mustard seeds and cumin into the onions, letting them cook for 5 minutes until warm and fragrant, then add the tomatoes. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes, crushing the tomatoes with a fork or wooden spoon as they start to soften, so their juices run.
  7. Stir in the gochujang, then the butter beans and about 100ml of their bottling or canning liquor. Leave to simmer for 5 minutes. When the tomatoes are ready, carefully pour about 250ml (a couple of ladles) of the tomato juices in the roasting tin into the beans (enough to give a thick, soupy consistency).
  8. Serve the butter bean sauce with the roast tomatoes.