String Bean and Carrot Salad with Dill-Vinaigrette

May 2009

String Beans

(NOT Cooking 101 ... Plus)

Is there any vegetable as boring as string beans? These long, slim, green things are always around, in all seasons and in every supermarket, from your local neighborhood haunt to the one you travel to when you want fiddlehead ferns or ramps. You’ve eaten them ever since you were a kid and your mother said you had to have at least four before you could get dessert.

String beans are so commonplace it is easy to pass them by in favor of more enticing vegetables.

But don’t. They’re too important.

Let’s not bother with details about their nutritional value (even though they are loaded with vitamins C, K and A and are a good source of fiber and several nutrients such as calcium, phosphorus, folate, manganese and omega-3 fatty acids). And it might not be important to you that they are fabulously unfattening (about 44 calories per cup).

Consider only their culinary virtues. String beans are common because adults, even those who dislike most vegetables, will eat them. Children will eat them. String beans are mild, yet have a delicate, understated flavor. When you bite into one it doesn’t scream “I’m a vegetable that’s good for you.”

People actually like string beans.

They are handy too. For example, because the pods are harvested when immature and the internal beans are tiny, string beans are among the few bean varieties that can be eaten raw. Serve them fresh as a nibble by themselves or as part of a platter of crudités.

Most of the time we cook them though and, happily, they need little in the way of preparation. Trim the pointy ends and rinse them just before you use them for recipes. Most varieties no longer have the “sting” that ran down the length of the vegetable (and gave them their common name).

When they are cooked properly, string beans are also pretty, a lovely jewel green, which makes them perfect as a side dish. They look terrific next to meats and poultry fresh from the grill, whether you cook the vegetable plain or as a more elaborate side dish with, for example, tomatoes, mushrooms, corn kernels, bell peppers or onions, or as the classic “almondine,” which includes slivered almonds.

They are also a beautiful component of a salad (Salade Nicoise, a universal favorite, always includes string beans). Add the vegetable to potato or pasta salad. Or cloak the beans with vinaigrette, alone or with other ingredients such as grape tomatoes, cooked carrots, crumbled feta or goat cheese, chorizo and dates, and so on.

String beans may be available all year, but late spring through early fall is when they are at their flavor peak and typically less expensive, (although Haricots Verts, which are slim, tender string beans, are always costly). When you’re at the produce bin, take a few extra moments of time and choose each bean individually. Select the ones that are smooth, evenly colored and without brown spots or bruises. They should also feel firm, as if they would snap when broken in half (some people refer to string beans as snap beans). Although they will last up to a week in the refrigerator, it’s best to cook them within a couple of days, when they will taste freshest.