Beanie Babies

As we've discussed earlier, haricots verts is French for green beans.  What it usually refers to stateside are the smaller, more tender baby green beans--and a doubled price tag.  Haricots verts go for about $6/lb. usually.

I was heading home today after yoga and there were still a couple of Greenmarket vendors making their last sales of the day.  When it comes to the Union Square Greenmarket, I am like a kid with ADD trying to walk through Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  I lose my homeward trajectory and always have to buy something for myself.  As far as sicknesses go, it's not a bad one to have, I think.

Today, the farmer on the northwest corner in front of Starbucks (sadly I didn't get his name or his region of origin) had the most gorgeous, verdant green beans.  The little, tender emerald beauties would most certainly qualify as haricots verts; lucky for me, they had the $3/lb. price tag of regular old green beans.  And they didn't have to travel all the way from Guatemala, land of mini-veggies, to get to my plate. 

So how do you pick good green beans?  I like the ones that are, at their longest, the length of index finger up to your thumb webbing, and no thicker than a Papermate pen.  The really young ones are tender and flexible, with a soft, velvety feel.  The stems should look fresh and not too dry or dark, and the pod color should be a nice grassy green, not pale pistachio green, and free of blemishes.  The beans at this stand were so uniformly gorgeous, I bought nearly two pounds and brought them home to make one of my favorite dishes, dry fried green beans. 

Dry Fried Green Beans


1.  Wash the green beans and dry them enthusiastically in a colander.  Trim the stem ends of your little green beans.  You don't have to cut off the tails, unless you're a wanker baby who also needs to cut the crusts off sandwiches.  Set them aside.

2.  Peel a three or four inch piece of ginger.  TIP: Don't bother with a vegetable peeler, which wastes a lot of ginger root.  Just scrape the very thin ginger skin off with the edge of a paring knife.

3.  Cut the ginger into 1/4" thick slices.  Throw two big ass cloves of garlic (preferably Keith's Organic's complex Rocambole or other local hardneck garlic) with the ginger into a mortar and pestle.

4.  Smash the garlic and ginger together til you have a rough mash.  If you don't have a mortar and pestle, go get one.  Seriously.  A 9" granite mortar with pestle is $40 at Bangkok Grocery Center, or about $30 at Pacific Supermarket in Woodside, Queens and it's totally useful.  If you buy yours in Queens, you can use the money you saved towards a cab ride home because that shit is HEAVY.   

5.  Heat up your large pan on high heat.  When it's hot, add a Lidia Bastianich amount of oil to the pan -- enough to coat the bottom of the pan generously, but not so much that it rises up the sides.  We're pan frying, not deep frying.  (I used extra virgin olive oil, because I'm trying to stave off heart disease, but you could use tasty peanut oil if you don't have cholesterol problems.  You lucky beeyotch.)

6.  Throw your green beans into the hot pan.  Don't just tip your colander into the pan though -- excess water from the bottom of your colander will just splash back up at you.  Better to drop the green beans in by the handful.  I have overcrowded the pan a bit, but I am a lazy cook.  Do as I say, not as I do!

7.  Fry those green beans until they are tender and get a little blistery and browned, maybe 7-10 minutes on high heat, depending on whether or not you overcrowded the pan.  When they look yummy and softened, add your garlic ginger mash and toss it into the green beans vigorously.  Don't let the garlic burn.

8.  Once you can really smell the garlic and ginger, add a couple of glugs of soy sauce and a teaspoon of sugar.  Add a little mirin or cooking wine if you have it -- I didn't have any, so my beans didn't get any. 

9.  Anoint with a smidge of sesame oil and toss the green beans one more time.  Remove from heat.

10.  Serve with fresh jasmine rice and a little protein.  I've got baked chicken with garlic chili fish sauce lime juice dipping sauce.

11.  This meal is best served with a helping of bad TV, like Rock Star: INXS, where unshowered scruffians sell their souls to Mark Burnett for a chance to fill the sexy shoes of a self-asphyxiator.  Poor Michael Hutchence is rolling in his grave, bless...

****

When I was in college, I tried to cook with my roommates.  I was a bit of a control freak at the stove, so I told my dear Brazilian friend to take care of the rice while I manned the stir-fry.  I gasped in shock as I watched her sprinkle a generous amount of SALT into the rice cooker in slow motion.  Salt?!!  In RICE?!!?!  I'd never IMAGINED such HORRORS.  Jasmine rice is a perfect canvas upon which to paint your masterful dishes.  It tastes clean, it smells incredible, and salting it ruins the balance of the meal -- for Asian food, at least.  So if you come over to my house, you'll keep the salt away from the rice cooker if you know what's good for you.