Description

If there is a single dish that could be called the national comfort food of Turkey, it is kuru fasulye — slow-cooked white beans in a rich tomato and pepper sauce. Humble, nourishing, deeply satisfying, and intensely flavored, it is a dish eaten by every Turk from every background, served in the most basic lokanta restaurants and the grandest family tables alike. It is the food of soldiers and sultans, of grandmothers and students, of Istanbul and the remotest Anatolian village.

Beans on the Ottoman Table

White beans — kuru fasulye literally means “dry beans” — have been cultivated in Anatolia for centuries, arriving from the Americas via European trade routes following the Columbian Exchange in the 15th and 16th centuries. They were rapidly adopted into Turkish and Ottoman cooking because of their practical virtues: they are cheap, filling, high in protein, and they dry and store beautifully through the long Anatolian winters. By the 17th and 18th centuries, bean dishes were firmly established in Ottoman cuisine at every level of society.

The Ottoman military — the famous Janissary corps — had a particularly close relationship with legume dishes. Bean and lentil stews were staple rations for soldiers on campaign, providing the protein and sustenance needed for long marches and battles. The Janissaries were so associated with their cooking pots that the cauldron (kazan) became a symbol of their corps — an uprising was expressed by the soldiers overturning their cooking pots, a gesture that carried enormous political meaning.

The Art of the Slow Cook

The genius of kuru fasulye lies in its patience. The beans must be soaked overnight, then cooked slowly — sometimes for two hours or more — until they reach a state of perfect tenderness: soft throughout, yet holding their shape, with skins that yield without breaking. The tomato and pepper sauce in which they cook must be reduced to a rich, concentrated depth that coats each bean without overwhelming it.

Every Turkish family has their own recipe and their own small adjustments — more tomato paste or less, a piece of dried pepper or not, lamb chunks or completely vegetarian. This variation is part of kuru fasulye’s beauty: it is a canvas on which generations of cooks have left their own small mark while remaining faithful to the essential character of the dish.

The Essential Pairing: Rice Pilaf

Kuru fasulye is almost never eaten alone in Turkey — it arrives at the table alongside pirinç pilavı, steamed white rice cooked in butter, with the bean juices spooned generously over both. A side of pickled vegetables or turşu, and perhaps some bread, completes the meal. This pairing — beans and rice — is one of the oldest and most nutritionally complete food combinations known to human cultures, and in Turkey it has been elevated to a beloved national institution.

In Istanbul, the institution of the fasulye lokantası — the bean restaurant — is a cherished part of the city’s culinary culture. These simple eateries, some operating for generations in the same location, serve kuru fasulye as their centerpiece dish, ladled from enormous copper pots that have been simmering since early morning. To eat kuru fasulye in one of these old Istanbul lokantaları is to participate in an urban ritual that has changed little in over a century.

Ingredients

• 2 cups dried white beans (soaked overnight)
• 200g cubed beef or lamb (optional)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1/2 tbsp red pepper paste
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Hot water

Instructions

1. Drain the soaked beans and boil them in fresh water until slightly tender. Drain again.
2. In a large pot, sauté the onions in olive oil until soft.
3. If using meat, add it now and cook until browned.
4. Stir in the tomato and red pepper pastes.
5. Add the partially cooked beans and pour in enough hot water to cover them by an inch.
6. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer on low heat for about 1 hour, or until beans are very tender and the sauce has thickened.
7. Serve with rice pilaf and pickles.