Portugal has an absurd number of regional egg-and-almond pastries, and many of them are already on this site. Pastéis de feijão 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. What you will taste is a dense, moist, faintly citrusy filling that is richer than a plain almond tart, because the beans add body without adding sweetness. It is the kind of old convent-kitchen thrift that shows up constantly in Portuguese baking: using what is 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
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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Divide the filling among the pastry shells, filling each about three-quarters full.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until the filling is set and lightly golden on top and the pastry edges are golden brown.
- Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before carefully unmolding onto a rack to cool completely.
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