Sunday Slow Sides – Week 3 Green Beans

This week’s recipe came from Annie of Churches in Venice She provided two recipes, Summer Green Bean Salad and Vibrant Tasty Green Beans, both from 101 Cookbooks.

I opted for the salad recipe (and actually had it with my previous Sunday side, the Avocado Mash).

Summer Green Bean Salad

3/4 pound green beans, stems pinched off
1 teaspoon finely chopped chives
1/4 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon minced shallots
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons heavy cream
scant 1/4 teaspoon salt
tiny pinch of freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon honey (optional)
a handful of frisee or little gem hearts
a handful of small cherry tomatoes, each cut in half
1/2 cup hazelnuts, smashed and toasted

Start by making the dressing. Whisk together the chives, thyme, shallots, lemon juice, heavy cream, salt and pepper. Whisk in the olive oil with a fork, stirring until everything comes together. Taste and adjust for seasoning. Sometimes my lemon dressings have a puckery edge to them, and when that happens I just whisk in just a touch of honey to counterbalance the sour. Set aside.

In the meantime, bring two quarts of water to a boil. Salt generously and stir in the green beans. Cook for about 1 1/2 minutes. Just until the beans brighten up and soften a touch, I go a bit beyond “al dente” here for this salad. Quickly drain them and run under cold water to stop the cooking.

In a large bowl toss the green beans with the frisee, about 1/2 of the hazelnuts, with a big splash of the dressing. Toss well. Taste, and add more dressing, salt or pepper at this point. Toss again if needed. Add the tomatoes and toss very gently.
You can turn this out onto a platter or plate individually topped with the remaining hazelnuts.

Serves about 4.

I’m a bad blogger though because while I remembered to take the picture, I didn’t note the changes I made to make this diet friendly. I’m going to go look at the recipe now and see if I recall. Okay – I know exactly what I did. I didn’t use her recipe for the dressing, instead coming up with my own concoction that had much less oil (figure 1t per serving), no cream (I bet I put a splash of milk in though), a smaller amount of chopped, toasted hazelnuts and definitely the honey. Then with the no frisee on hand, I served mine over a big heaping bowl of mixed spring greens. But you get the idea – it’s a green bean salad – use the recipe exactly, or as a start, it will work.

And I have to say, with the abundance of green beans I got from the CSA this year, this recipe was a revelation! Green beans in salad – I mean I know they’re on a nicoise but I never thought about doing it in an every day salad and I really liked them! Now I have another way to eat green beans besides my standard roast.
I went back and checked my food journal – with my adjustments (whatever exactly they were) this came in at 3 points for a serving.