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I wish I had something witty and clever to say about green beans (or French beans, as they are also known), but I don’t. All I can say is that I love them – the fresher they are, the better. I could never have imagined myself eating plain boiled vegetables – I always thought that would be too bland and boring. But what do you know, the yellow French beans that I’ve grown this summer have mostly been eaten exactly like that... picked from the plant, washed, boiled, sprinkled with a little salt and absentmindedly nibbled down while doing other things.
Given that I liked green beans at their plainest, I had no qualms about not liking them roasted in the oven – although, to be fair, it would NEVER have occurred to me to actually roast green beas. It was Nupur’s post on addictive green beans that set me on that particular track... and the recipe is 99% like hers, except that I used a balsamic vinegar reduction (left over from a previous recipe I’d tried).
Pete was dubious about the edibility of roasted green beans, but I made him try them anyway... and I think perhaps that the balsamic vinegar syrup tilted the balance in favour of the beans. What a lovely recipe!
Recipe for: Roasted green beans
Ingredients:
500gm green beans, topped and tailed
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
For the dressing:
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar syrup
Method:
1. Toss the green beans with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast at 180C on a baking sheet till they acquire black spots.
Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes.
2. Place the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together.
Adjust the flavour to suit your taste, if required.
3. Place the beans on a serving plate and pour on the dressing, then serve immediately.
I wonder if there comes a point when it's no longer a thrill to be able to go into your garden and pick your own vegetables, herbs or fruit fresh, to use in your own kitchen (or even to see used in someone else’s kitchen, come to that) for your own family's consumption. I haven't come to that stage and I don't see myself ever doing so, if only because I don’t grow as many edible things as I’d like to because of space constraints and my own limitations as a gardener.
Given that, every little thing that I use from my garden is a source of huge pleasure – the ripe blueberries that I pick off in ones and twos and eat rightaway (not enough of them to do anything else!); the chillies that I’ve picked and used; the herbs (3 types of mint, sage, thyme, chives, parsley, coriander and 3 types of basil), the spinach beet leaves… all of these seem to taste better for having grown in my containers.
This year, for the first time, I tried growing some dwarf yellow French beans – I have six plants that give me a handful of golden-yellow tender beans every week. Usually I’m happy to boil them, and eat them straightaway without further ado – they’re that good (and I like fresh French beans that much). But this time I wanted to use them in a recipe, and given that I’d got a bunch of mint (it really is growing like crazy this year) from my garden, the last of the coriander and some fresh green chillies, I thought to combine them all in one recipe – along with fresh green peas as well.
So that is what this is – a very green(fingered) pulao recipe.
Recipe for: Minty golden bean pulao
Ingredients:
1 cup basmati rice, washed and soaked for 20 minutes
1/2 cup golden (or green) French beans, sliced on the diagonal
1/2 cup fresh green peas
1 cup loosely packed mint leaves
1/2 cup loosely packed coriander leaves
2 tbsp lime/lemon juice
5 baby plum tomatoes (or 1 small tomato), chopped
2 medium onions, sliced thin
5 purple shallots, sliced thin
4 fresh green chillies (or to taste)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander powder
1" piece ginger, sliced
Salt to taste
1 tsp oil
2 cups water
Method:
1. Grind the mint, coriander, green chillies and ginger to a smooth paste along with the lemon juice. Reserve.
2. In a pan (preferably one which has a tight-fitting lid), heat the oil. Fry the cumin seeds and coriander powder for 30 seconds,
then add the sliced shallots and onions and stir-fry on high heat till the onions start to turn soft.
Stir in the tomatoes and let them cook for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the green peas and the sliced beans and mix them into the onions, stir-frying for 2-3 minutes.
Then add the ground mint-coriander paste
and let it fry till the raw smell goes (about 3 minutes).
4. Add the soaked rice (without the water), stirring it into the vegetable mixture, keeping the heat med-high. Be careful not to let it "catch" and burn.
5. Once the rice begins to turn opaque, add 2 cups water and salt to taste.
Bring this to a bubbling boil, then turn the heat right down and cover the pan with the lid. Let it cook on the lowest heat for 20 minutes, then turn the heat off and let the pulao sit undisturbed for another 15 minutes.
After that, uncover the pan, fluff up the rice with a fork and serve with raita and/or something crunchy on the side.
