Bacon, herb and butter bean soup

I bought dried butter beans the other day and every time I saw the packet I was a bit perplexed as to what to do with them. So on Monday I soaked and cooked them, on Tuesday I pureed them and added pesto and herb salt, but it still wasn't there yet. Today I fried up some streaky bacon, added that and viola – it had arrived! Yum, it was supposed to be my lunch but I slurped it up at 11h00 already…

I was at Fruit and Veg on Roeland Street this morning and found Natural beech wood smoked streaky bacon from Joostenburg butchery. I LOVE Joostenburg pork butchery and am overjoyed that one can get their products at Fruit and Veg. If you are ever going out Stellenbosch or Paarl way – be sure and make a turn past Joostenburg. It also has a fabulous deli attached to its pork butchery too!

Okay, well there isn’t really much more to say about this recipe other than, beans are good for you, herbs are good for you and bacon makes everything taste amazing. Done.

Bacon, herb and butterbean soup

Makes about 3 litres of soup

1 Tbsp of oil

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

500g packet of dried butter beans, soaked and cooked (or 4 x 400g tins of butterbeans drained)

2 litres of water

2 tsp of herb salt (or 1 and a ½ tsp of salt with 1 tsp of finely chopped sage and rosemary)

4 Tbsp of basil pesto

½ tsp of freshly ground black pepper

1 Tbsp of finely chopped sage (extra for garnish if desired)

250g of streaky bacon, roughly chopped (use Macon if you don't do bacon!)

Heat the oil in a pot large enough to hold all the soup, gently fry the onion and garlic until golden. Add the cooked beans and water and allow to heat through. Puree this in the pot with a stick blender until smooth. Add the herb salt, pesto, pepper and sage. Take off the heat.

Fry the bacon until crispy and reserve some for garnish if you want to, add the rest into the soup. Add the drippings from the pan too as they have a lot of flavour. Stir and allow the soup to heat through and let all the flavours combine.

Serve garnished with sage and bacon bits.

You could finish the soup with some cream to make the end result silkier but it is not essential.