Green Bean Prep

[Smithy]

I love green beans. Fresh green beans cooked with tomatoes, with bacon, with garlic, with pototoes - you name it, I love 'em.

But what a pain they are to clean! I remember well, from my childhood days, watching my beloved grandmother and her friends dealing with green beans:

* Wash.

* Snap off an end and pitch it into the "reject" pot.

* Snap off successive segments, approximately an inch long, and pitch them into the "cook" pot.

* Pitch the bitter end into the reject pot, where the first end had already gone.

These beans also had strings that needed extraction during the snap-and-clean process. I'd managed to forget the strings until this moment; now that I remember them, I'll suggest that their loss is a triumph of genetic engineering.

Fast forward to my kitchen. I love green beans, but I hate prepping them. Whether I do them one at a time, or several at a time; whether I use a knife or the wrist-snapping action; they still seem to to take forever to prepare for cooking.

Surely there's a better way. Short of buying already-prepared green beans, how do you deal with them?

[Pierogi]

I love green beans. Fresh green beans cooked with tomatoes, with bacon, with garlic, with pototoes - you name it, I love 'em.

But what a pain they are to clean! I remember well, from my childhood days, watching my beloved grandmother and her friends dealing with green beans:

* Wash.

* Snap off an end and pitch it into the "reject" pot.

* Snap off successive segments, approximately an inch long, and pitch them into the "cook" pot.

* Pitch the bitter end into the reject pot, where the first end had already gone.

These beans also had strings that needed extraction during the snap-and-clean process. I'd managed to forget the strings until this moment; now that I remember them, I'll suggest that their loss is a triumph of genetic engineering.

Fast forward to my kitchen. I love green beans, but I hate prepping them. Whether I do them one at a time, or several at a time; whether I use a knife or the wrist-snapping action; they still seem to to take forever to prepare for cooking.

Surely there's a better way. Short of buying already-prepared green beans, how do you deal with them?

I love green beans too......yellow wax beans as well.

When I use non-trimmed beans (yes, I'll cop to the truth, I often buy the pre-trimmed, packaged beans, I'm sorry), I usually put a handful down on the board, and use the back of my chef's knife to get all the ends evenly lined up. The I whack off however much I think is appropriate. And do the same on the other end....line up & whack. Sort of like when you're making the cross cuts to dice celery or carrots.

I must admit I usually don't cut them into smaller pieces after that. I figure I'll just deal with them in long pieces after cooking. If, *if*, I decide to cut them shorter, then I just whack them up from the even end, and accept the fact that the last pieces of some of the beans will be smaller than others, due to the inherant difference in the lengths of each one. But I don't stress over that, like stripping thyme (see that thread), life's too short.

[Moopheus]

When I use non-trimmed beans (yes, I'll cop to the truth, I often buy the pre-trimmed, packaged beans, I'm sorry), I usually put a handful down on the board, and use the back of my chef's knife to get all the ends evenly lined up. The I whack off however much I think is appropriate.

That's basically what I do. I haven't come up with a better way to trim them.

[sparrowgrass]

I don't bother to break the tail end off--it doesn't seem to taste any different from the rest of the bean.

I like to sit on the porch with a big basket of beans to break--it is very mindless and relaxing.

Picking beans is a whole other story--hot and itchy and bent over so my back hurts--maybe that is why breaking them seems pleasant.

[OliverB]

Same here, usually cut the end off. I love the little tip and leave it on. Might cut them, but mostly I leave them whole. Recently bought some haricort vert (spelling?) at Trader Joes, those were already prepped. Not impressed though, they had a somewhat grassy taste. Might have been just that package, but I'm not in a rush to try these expensive beans again too soon. Also love the yellow ones and the ones with purple dots or all purple. Fun to make a mix.

True, great that they bred the strings out.

[lesliec]

I'm with the two previous replies - cut the stalk end off, leave the 'tail' on (Jamie Oliver says it's cute ...) and don't bother cutting smaller.

Nice, simple recipe: drop prepared beans into briskly boiling, salted water for a minute or so, then into cold (preferably iced) water to stop them cooking. Melt some butter in a suitably-sized pan, drop the drained beans in, add salt and pepper to taste and stir occasionally for maybe another two-three minutes. Half a minute or so before the end of cooking, add a clove or two of finely-chopped garlic. Perfection is when the beans are hot but still crunchy.

OK, THAT'S what I'm doing tonight.

[DerekW]

I'd just add that I try to use gravity to line 'em up - loosely grab a bundle in one hand and stand them on end on the chopping board, giving them a few shakes / bounces before laying them down and taking the ends off with a stroke of the knife. That's usually faster for me than lining them up with the back of the knife.

[cbread]

Am I dreaming, or there a small number of really good green beans out there in the markets, and a heck of a lot of so so beans?

I feel like a few beans, and once in a long while, a whole batch, seem to get perfectly "tender crisp" upon rather short cooking. Those few perfect beans cook up just right without that nasty fibrous material that requires much more cooking to render palatable. 99% of the beans I find in my market demand lots of cooking to subdue the fibers. By the time the fibers are chewable, the rest of the bean is mushy and near ruined. Is my market selling old tough beans? Is there any way to see which beans are good? I really like green beans, but the ones I find are frustrating.

[Jacquester]

I generally do the line up and slice off method too. I was wondering if anyone had a good way to prepare them other than the old green bean casserole. My way is to par boil them, then I saute some shallot in olive oile and toss in the beans. I was looking for something a bit snazzier though. Any ideas?

[baroness]

Add a generous amount of grated Parmesan to what you're doing and saute to make a bit of crust.

Add olives and a bit of lemon to finish.

[Lisa Shock]

I generally do the line up and slice off method too. I was wondering if anyone had a good way to prepare them other than the old green bean casserole. My way is to par boil them, then I saute some shallot in olive oile and toss in the beans. I was looking for something a bit snazzier though. Any ideas?

cream of green bean soup

minestrone

steamed with beurre blanc or beurre nantais

tempura

mirin glazed -saute in a little butter first (with or without good ramen noodles)

sauteed with oil, garlic, oregano, and tomato concasse

korma

mustard seed/green chile based curry with paneer, like palak paneer without the spinach

tikka masala sauce

(my garden produced a LOT of beans this year, and, I'm a vegetarian)

[Moopheus]

I was wondering if anyone had a good way to prepare them other than the old green bean casserole.

This green beans and coconut stir-fryfrom Suvir Saran's Indian Home Cooking makes a fairly regular appearance at my house, usually served over some basmati rice.

[kayb]

I generally do the line up and slice off method too. I was wondering if anyone had a good way to prepare them other than the old green bean casserole. My way is to par boil them, then I saute some shallot in olive oile and toss in the beans. I was looking for something a bit snazzier though. Any ideas?

My favorite new green bean recipe is green beans Provencale -- steamed, then sauteed in butter and olive oil with shallots, rosemary, halved grape tomatos and basil. Wonderful.

[LindaK]

I'm with the two previous replies - cut the stalk end off, leave the 'tail' on (Jamie Oliver says it's cute ...) and don't bother cutting smaller.Nice, simple recipe: drop prepared beans into briskly boiling, salted water for a minute or so, then into cold (preferably iced) water to stop them cooking. Melt some butter in a suitably-sized pan, drop the drained beans in, add salt and pepper to taste and stir occasionally for maybe another two-three minutes. Half a minute or so before the end of cooking, add a clove or two of finely-chopped garlic. Perfection is when the beans are hot but still crunchy.OK, THAT'S what I'm doing tonight.

This is green bean nirvana. The blanch and cold-water shock treatment is my standard technique and makes even out-of-season beans taste delicious. Salting the water is key. One benefit is that if you are cooking for a crowd you can cook the beans in advance, just dry them well out of the ice water and keep them chilled. Bt popular demand, I bring green beans to the family Thanksgiving feast for 15-20 people. All that's required at the last minute is to add them to a pans with the melted butter, toss until hot, and add salt and pepper if needed.

Am I dreaming, or there a small number of really good green beans out there in the markets, and a heck of a lot of so so beans?

Yes. Bean season here is over, and if my family didn't demand green beans for Thanksgiving, I'd be through cooking them until next summer. Sad but worth the wait for the real thing, like tomatoes. During the peak season, I eat them almost every day in one form or another, they are soooo good.

[Dejah]

I blanch whole green beans in water with a sprinkle of baking soda to maintain the lovely green colour. They are then cooled under cold running water and drained. Stir-fry some ground pork or chicken with Chinese chili paste (toban jiang), add the green beans at the last minute, and serve over rice.

To cut off the stalk end, I take a handful of beans, even out the ends, then trim with kitchen scissors.

[LRunkle]

I grab a handful roughly aligned and trim off all the visible stem ends on one side with a kitchen shears. Then I turn the stack around in my hand and trim all the stem ends sticking out the other side. This usually gets about 90-95% of all the stem ends. Then I just start dropping the handful in the "finished" bowl a few at a time looking for ones that escaped trimming. I only trim the stem ends. This is a pretty quick method for me.