Chorizo & Butter Bean Bake

Ingredients

• 1 x 400g tin butter beans, drained
• 250 g cherry tomatoes
• 1 red onion, cut into wedges
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 200 g chorizo ring, sliced into coins
• 15g flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• crusty sourdough bread, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 220°C fan. A properly hot oven is what gets you crisp chorizo edges instead of pale, sweating coins.
2. Tip the chorizo coins, drained butter beans, cherry tomatoes, onion wedges and sliced garlic into a large roasting tin. Spread everything out in a single layer — don't crowd the tin. Pile it up and the ingredients steam in their own moisture; spread out, the edges catch and crisp.
3. Drizzle over the olive oil, dust with the smoked paprika, and toss with your hands until every coin and bean is coated in orange oil. The paprika needs the oil to bloom in the heat — that's what turns it from dusty powder into the smoky perfume that defines this dish.
4. Season with a pinch of salt and a good crack of black pepper. The chorizo brings plenty of salt itself, so go light here — you'll taste and adjust at the end.
5. Tuck the sliced garlic underneath the tomatoes and onion wedges so it bakes in the oil rather than sitting exposed on top. Garlic this thin will burn in a 220°C oven within minutes if it's left uncovered, and burnt garlic turns the whole tin bitter.
6. Roast for 18–20 minutes, until the chorizo coins are crisp and curling at the edges, the tomatoes have burst and slumped into paprika-stained oil, and the onion wedges are softened with darkened tips. The smell from the oven should be smoky, sweet, and unmistakably Spanish.
7. Pull the tin out and taste a spoonful of the oil and a bean together. Adjust for salt now — at the tin, not at the table.
8. Scatter generously with the chopped parsley and bring the tin straight to the table with crusty sourdough bread for mopping up the smoky, paprika-orange juices.