Mogette de Vendée

Mogette de Vendée

What it is

Physicians were already recording bean fields in the Vendée at the end of the seventeenth century, and the name is usually traced to the mounges — the monks of the local abbeys. Picked half-dry in late summer, the bean skips the drying yard entirely and goes to market as a fresh vegetable.

In the kitchen

Half-dry mogettes need no soaking at all: cold unsalted water, a bare simmer, and they are creamy in about forty minutes — salt any earlier and the skins toughen. Fully dried ones want a night in water and twice the time.

Goes with

Butter Garlic Vendée ham Bay leaf Thyme Cream Parsley

Same species

Ayocote bean Black bean Borlotti bean Cannellini bean Coco de Paimpol Faba asturiana

In season alongside

Grenoble walnut Halibut Marcona almond Pumpkin Soissons bean Sorana bean

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