Black-Eyed Beans

Black-eyed beans are the pulse a Greek or Cypriot cook reaches for when nothing has been soaked overnight. They cook from dry in well under an hour, which sets them apart from every other bean in the cupboard, and that speed is exactly why they turn up in ordinary weekday Lenten cooking rather than being saved for the long Sunday bake that gigantes or white beans demand.

Cyprus calls them louvi, and louvia me lahana, the beans boiled with chard or other leafy greens and dressed at the table with olive oil and a hard squeeze of lemon, is one of the island's plainest and most frequently cooked meals. Mainland versions run along the same lines, adding dill, spring onion and sometimes tomato, and the beans are eaten warm rather than piping hot.

They need no soaking, but they do benefit from being brought to the boil once, drained, and then cooked in fresh water, which keeps the finished liquid clean rather than muddy. Salt and lemon both firm the skins, so hold them back until the beans are already tender. Beans that have sat in a cupboard for years will never soften properly, whatever you do to them.