‘Liquid electricity’: Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for grated tomato and butter beans with olive pangrattato

From theguardian.com/food

Few things in life are as simple and mouth-watering as tomatoes on toast sprinkled with salt, but here they hit new heights with olivey breadcrumbs, garlic and butter beans, too 

My favourite breakfast is sliced tomatoes on rye bread sprinkled with sea salt. The best bit is neither the tomato flesh nor the bread, it’s the salted tomato water that runs down the back of my hands and threatens to meet my elbows. It’s liquid electricity and one of my favourite earthly flavours. It could make a great stock, or a delicious martini, perhaps even a marinade for ceviche, but here it’s thrown in at the end to refresh a dish of gently cooked tomatoes, beans and dill. Perfect for dunking anything but elbows into.

Grated tomato and butter beans with olive pangrattato

Photograph: Louise Hagger/The Guardian. Food styling: Emily Kydd. Prop styling: Jennifer Kay. Food styling assistant: Eden Owen-Jones

Ideally, you’ll need a food processor or blender for the pangrattato; if you don’t have one, tear the bread into small chunks, then toss with the olives, spread out on a chopping board and chop through a few times until you have a fine-ish crumb.

Prep 10 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4

6-8 large ripe tomatoes (750g)
Fine sea salt
85g sourdough (ie 1 big slice), chopped, plus extra to serve
30g pitted kalamata olives (about 8)
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tsp ancho or aleppo chilli flakes
2 400g tins butter beans, drained and rinsed – I like Cirio
25g dill, leaves picked to get 18g, roughly chopped

Grate the tomatoes into a bowl and discard the skins. Add half a teaspoon of salt, mix, then tip into a sieve and set over the empty bowl to catch the juice – don’t discard the juice.

Put the sourdough and pitted olives in a food processor and pulse to fine breadcrumbs. Put two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in a pan on a medium heat and, when hot, add the bread and olive crumbs and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes, until dry and crumbly.

Put three tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan on a medium heat and, when hot, add the crushed garlic and the chilli flakes, and cook, stirring, for two minutes, until fragrant and light brown. Tip in the drained beans, the tomato pulp from the sieve and a half-teaspoon of salt, turn up the heat to high and cook, stirring every now and then, for 10 minutes.

Tip in the reserved tomato juice from the bowl and half the dill, and stir to combine. Tip everything out on to a lipped platter, scatter the breadcrumb mix on top and finish with the remaining dill. Drizzle liberally with more extra-virgin olive oil and serve with toasted sourdough to ladle the beans on top of.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/jun/14/grated-tomato-and-butter-beans-recipe-with-olive-pangrattato-meera-sodha