This is the most delicious way to prepare green beans
Soggy, bitter, mushy green beans: for many people, they are rightly a childhood trauma etched into their memory. Fortunately, that’s not something confined to your (very) distant past. No, you know better now—you know how to prepare truly delicious green beans. Are you secretly scratching your head? No worries, I’ll tell you.
Overcooking green beans is, of course, a cardinal sin. Even if you wanted to boil them, 10 minutes is more than enough. But do you know what the absolute most delicious way to prepare green beans is? Blanching the beans. So you boil the green beans briefly and then cool them down very quickly. This keeps them crisp and preserves their beautiful green color. Truly fine-looking beans.
The finest-looking beans
Start at the beginning. If you choose ugly beans at the greengrocer or supermarket, they’ll never become truly fine-looking. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with misshapen produce. It’s actually wonderfully sustainable to take those home. But if they’re almost completely brown and feel extremely limp or wet, you’d be better off choosing different beans.
Blanch it, baby
Next: blanching. Put a large pot of water and salt (essential for preserving flavor!) on the stove. Bring it to a boil and trim your beans in the meantime. Also prepare an ice bath: a bowl of ice-cold water. Is the water boiling? Add the green beans and cook them for 2 to 3 minutes. After this cooking time, remove them from the water with tongs and immediately plunge them into the ice bath. The extreme cold stops the cooking process instantly. That’s exactly why they stay wonderfully firm, crisp, and fresh. Isn’t that how you want them?
Hot, cold, or frozen
Now sauté the green beans in a pan with whatever seasonings you like. Add a little oil to the pan and turn the heat up high. Add the green beans and season them to taste. Garlic and chili peppers give your beans a lovely kick. Lemon juice, added only after sautéing, makes the beans taste fresh. Of course, you can experiment with this to your heart’s content.
You can serve the crisp green beans warm right away, but you can also let them cool and serve them cold. They can, for example, play the starring role in your salad. Another thing you can do with them very well: freeze them. Perfect if you want to eat green beans at a later time. Even then, they’re guaranteed not to be limp, musty, or mushy!
Also read:
- 8 super-good (and simple!) cooking tips
- Do you need to soak dried beans first?
- Recipe: broad bean dipping sauce
Source: The Kitchn
