GREEN BEANS

I begin this blog on vacation.  I’m outside of my home territory – my husband’s prolific garden, the local farmer’s market – and on my way to the beach in North Carolina.  We stop at a Whole Foods outside of Raleigh, which provides some basics.  However, almost all the vegetables seem to have come from California.  They are incredibly uninspiring.

On the country road out to the beach, we stop at a roadside produce stand.  A gentle man is selling the extra produce from his garden.  There are some green beans in a bucket that look good.  I try one.  It has a pleasant snap and fresh flavor.  I look to take a few handfuls.  The gardener looks confused – he doesn’t know how to sell a small quantity.  The bucket, he says, is $3.  I buy the bucket.

What to do with a bucket of green beans?

While they are fresh, I decide to blanch them.  Blanching is a French technique (now that Julia Child, one of my long-time idols, is back in fashion, maybe this technique will be as well).  Blanching is incredibly easy, but requires some initial set-up.  The first thing is a large pot of boiling water.  The second is a very large bowl – or small sink – filled with ice water (put cold tap water in and add ice cubes).  The third is a slotted spoon and colander, or a pasta insert for the pot.

Green beans require a bit of preparation before cooking, and there are a lot of them in this bucket.  Fortunately, my husband helps.  I relax into the rhythm of topping and tailing.  I line a few string beans up in a row, like little soldiers, with their ends all in order, then slice the narrow, stringy tops off.  I turn the beans around, line them up again, and take off the tails.  Sometimes I do them one by one, just for a change.  After they’re topped and tailed, I slice them into manageable lengths for eating – in halve or thirds. 

When all the beans are washed and sliced, I’m ready to blanch.  The water needs to be boiling hard.  At home, I do this in my pasta pot.  I keep the insert out and boil a full pot of water.  When ready to blanch, I put some of the vegetables into the insert, then plunge it into the boiling water.  You don’t want to overcrowd the pot – the veggies want space to roll around in the water.  When the vegetables are done, I pull out the insert and plunge the whole thing straight into the bowl of ice water. 

  

Here, in my vacation rental, there is no pasta pot.  I boil a large pot of water, and have my colander and slotted spoon standing by.  I drop a few handfuls of beans into the water.  Blanching times vary a lot on the vegetable, but I find that most cookbooks overestimate times.  A few minutes cooks the vegetables, keeps a bright color and some crunch.  The green beans take a couple of minutes, then I quickly scoop them out into the colander, and dump them into the ice water.   When they’re cool, I put them on a dish towel, paper towel, or in another colander.  In the meantime, I  start again with the next bunch of beans.

This is the trick with blanching – very fast boiling water for a short amount of time, followed by very cold water to prevent any further cooking.  Then remove from the water and let dry. The beans are very green and delicious.

And I have beans ready to be used, as I like, for the next few days.

Here’s what I do:

1.   The first night, when I’m ready for dinner, I melt a little butter and olive oil in a sauté pan  (this is a frying pan with edges that slope – but any frying pan will do.  Please – no toxic non-stick!).  The butter melts gently – not too hot, or it will burn.  I add the beans, and stir them in, coating them with the oil/butter.  I like to cook them slowly, until they’re very tender.  I add a handful of pecans, chopped into large-ish chunks, at the last minute.

2.   The second night, I make a salad using some rice leftover from dinner the first night, with some cooked shrimp (also leftover), and some of the blanched beans.  Mix it up, then make a very simple dressing – balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, some fresh basil, and some olive oil.  Toss and serve.

3.   A couple of nights later, we have friends for dinner.  I take all the beans that are left (this is still quite a lot!), throw them into a bowl, make a fresh dressing, and serve.  If I had some fresh cherry tomatoes, I’d halve them and throw them in.  But I don’t, so I serve them on their own.  

     People rave.  They are devoured.

Finally, the end of the green beans!