Pasteis de Feijao (Torres Vedras Bean and Almond Tartlets)

Portugal has a genuinely absurd number of regional egg-and-almond pastries, and I say that with love, having made a good number of them for this site already. Pasteis de feijao come from Torres Vedras, north of Lisbon, and their secret ingredient sounds more like a punchline than a recipe: white beans, pureed smooth and folded into the almond filling.

You will not taste bean, I promise. What you’ll taste is a dense, moist, faintly citrusy filling that’s richer than a plain almond tart because the beans add body without adding sweetness, letting the sugar and lemon zest do their job without competing. It’s the kind of old convent-kitchen thrift that shows up constantly in Portuguese baking, using what’s on hand to stretch a filling further and, more often than not, improving it in the process.

These sit nicely alongside the Pasteis de Nata (recipe on the site) and Queijadas de Sintra (recipe on the site) already on the site if you’re building out a proper Portuguese pastry table, and unlike custard tarts, they hold well for a couple of days at room temperature, which makes them a good make-ahead option.

Pasteis de Feijao Recipe

Prep time: 30 minutes plus 30 minutes chilling · Cook time: 25 minutes · Total: 1 hour 25 minutes · Servings: 18 tartlets · Calories: ~150 per serving

Ingredients

• For the pastry:
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 large egg
• 2 to 3 tablespoons cold water
• For the filling:
• 1 cup canned white beans (such as Great Northern or cannellini), drained and rinsed
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup almond flour (ground almonds)
• 4 large egg yolks
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

1. Make the pastry: in a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, and salt to combine. Add the cold butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg and 2 tablespoons cold water, pulsing just until the dough comes together, adding the extra water only if needed. Form into a disk, wrap, and chill 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F. Roll out the chilled dough and cut circles to line a mini muffin tin or tartlet tins, pressing gently into each cavity.
3. Make the filling: puree the beans in a food processor until completely smooth. Add the sugar, almond flour, egg yolks, lemon zest, cinnamon, and melted butter, and process until you have a smooth, thick paste.
4. Divide the filling among the pastry shells, filling each about three-quarters full.
5. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until the filling is set and lightly golden on top and the pastry edges are golden brown.
6. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before carefully unmolding onto a rack to cool completely.

Recipe Notes

• Canned white beans work perfectly here and save a lot of time; just make sure they’re well drained and rinsed of any canning liquid.
• The filling should be completely smooth before baking; a food processor does a much better job of this than a blender.
• These freeze well once baked and cooled; thaw at room temperature before serving.
• If you don’t have tartlet tins, a standard mini muffin tin works fine and gives you a slightly more casual, bite-sized version.