The gigante bean (Phaseolus coccineus) is a giant white runner-bean seed — the famous Greek "gigantes" or "elephant" bean — among the largest of all cultivated beans, a flat, broad, kidney-shaped ivory seed often 2-3 cm long. Mild, creamy and faintly sweet, it bakes to a soft, buttery interior inside a thin skin and is best known stewed in olive oil and tomato as the Greek meze gigantes plaki.