Cold White Bean Salad / Fasulye Piyazı

Writer's Note: I was recently in San Francisco and went to Pera, a new Turkish restaurant, for lunch. We ordered an assortment of mezes (appetizers) and the cold white bean salad was, in a word, phenomenal. If you live in San Francisco and you want a nice meze lunch, I highly recommend a visit to Pera: www.perasf.com. I called them and the head chef gave me their recipe, which I include below. For those of us who don't live in SF, we have to make do with the dishes that come out of our own kitchens.  I decorated the dish with hard-boiled eggs and lemon slices which is the traditional serving style in Turkey.  Quite 1950s-esque.  Don't worry, Pera serves a much more modern version of the dish.

Ingredients:

1 cup white beans, soaked overnight in lightly salted water

6 scallions, using only the middle light green sections, cut into 1/4 inch dice

1 cup whole parsley leaves

1 cup cherry tomatoes, split in half

good extra virgin olive oil, Pera uses Dafni brand, which they highly recommend

3-4 tbsp. red wine vinegar

3 hard-boiled eggs, optional

slices of lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil the white beans in salted water until they are just tender. Do not let them get mushy or the dish will turn to bean mash.

Cool outside of the fridge for a few hours in a large pan or on a large tray, and then put in the fridge until they are completely cooled.

At least an hour before serving, toss with the olive oil, vinegar, scallions, parsley leaves, salt and pepper and allow the flavors to marry.

Decorate with cherry tomatoes or halved hard-boiled eggs, if you like, and serve with lemon slices.