Pashtet iz Kvasoli (паштет із квасолі, white bean pâté)

The pale bowl is a trick. White beans look quiet, almost apologetic, until hot onion oil runs through them and the smell turns sweet, nutty, a little garlicky, the kind of smell that makes people cut rye bread before you've found the knife. This is fasting food with elbows. It fills the table without meat, without butter, without making a performance of its thrift.

The dish works because the beans are mashed warm and the zasmazhka, the slow-sweated flavour base, goes in at the end. Add it to the bean pot early and its sweetness wanders off into the water; fold it in warm, oil and all, and it sits brightly through the mash. Aunt Nadia would write only "oil, enough" and then, bless her, nothing else, so I learned the look: glossy, soft, able to hold a spoon mark but not stiff enough to sulk.

Serve it in a deep bowl with pickled cucumbers, fermented tomatoes if a jar is open, radishes in spring, and black bread. In January, when the garden has gone into jars, this is supper. In August, it sits next to tomato salad and dill so loud you smell it from the gate. Make more than you think; cold spoonfuls vanish from the fridge.