Nuts and Nut Oils: Green Beans with Almonds

Nut oils are very expensive. They are also perishable, not nearly as shelf-stable as refined oils. That's because nut oils are simply pressed, not treated with solvents and cleaned up before bottling. And, it's why they taste so good, retaining the flavors of the nut. They make a divine vinaigrette. Not everyone wants (or can afford) to spend $8 on a small bottle of oil. Know what? You can use nuts. They taste like nuts too. They are significantly cheaper than nut oil and more nutritious because they contain fiber, protein, and micronutrients. They are lower in calories than nut oils. Oils have 120 calories per Tablespoon. Nuts vary, but 2 Tablespoons of sliced almonds contain 66 calories. That's a pretty good bang for you flavor buck.

Want your salad to taste like almonds? Throw in some sliced almonds. Not only will your salad taste like almonds, it will have some great crunch too.

Green beans amandine is a classic French vegetable dish. This is a quick version of that dish. You cook some green beans, sauté the nuts in a tiny bit of oil or butter, then toss the beans with the sliced almonds. Now, isn't that simple? Impress your friends by called it green beans amandine. They don't need to know.

Here's more information on cooking fresh green beans.

Green Bean with Almonds (Amandine)
(serves 4, costs $1.50 to $2, depending on price of green beans locally)

Green Beans with Pineapple

Does that sound like a strange combination? It works rather well in this very simple Asian side dish. It's an unusual way to get your fruit!

You can make this with fresh green beans (see our post on cooking fresh green beans) but it works nearly as well with frozen green beans. Frozen green beans aren't quite as good as fresh ones, but what they lack in texture and sweetness, they make up for in convenience. No cleaning, no cutting.

You can cook frozen beans in the microwave or on the stove-top. Takes under 15 minutes either way. To cook in the microwave, put beans in a 2 quart microwavable dish with a cover. Add ¼ cup water. Cover and microwave on high for 4 minutes, give them a stir, and cook for another 4 minutes. Let stand, covered, for a couple of minutes. To cook on the stove-top, bring ¼ cup water to a boil in a 2 quart saucepan. Add beans, cover, and cook for 8 minutes. In either case, drain them well before proceeding with the recipe.

Nutritionally speaking, they are equivalent. Frozen beans are quite inexpensive. Fresh beans in season are close, but the frozen ones are consistently cheaper.

How about canned green beans? Their texture is mushy and their flavor is over-cooked. Stick to fresh or frozen.

Green Beans with Pineapple
(serves 4, costs $2)

12 ounces cooked green beans, either fresh or frozen, well-drained
2 Tablespoons butter
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
1 8-ounce can diced or crushed pineapple, drained
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
A pinch of salt

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, if using, and saute for about a minute. Add green beans and stir to cover with butter. Add pineapple and soy sauce. Cook another minute to heat up the Add a pinch of salt if you think it isn't salty enough.

Cooking Fresh Green Beans

Beans from my garden: green and yellow wax. They all cook up the same.

One of the great things about our classes is I get to talk to college students about what they eat and what they know how to cook. This is my absolute best generator of blog post ideas. I am a chef (why else would you listen to me?) and that means I know how to cook. I take a lot of basic skills for granted. My students bring me back to the real world.

So, here's a basic skill: cooking fresh green beans. Green beans are delicious, particularly fresh ones from the garden or the farmer's market. Green beans from the supermarket are still lovely and often cheap - around 99¢ per pound - during summer and early fall. They are easy and quick. The hardest part is cleaning them, and that isn't so hard.

Selecting good beans: bright green, no brown (those were picked over a week ago), no wrinkles. Definitely no slime. Not too big. Commercial beans are tender until they get pretty big but they are still better when under 6" long. Once you get them home, cook them within 5 days. If they start getting rusty-brown, cook them immediately. Once cooked, they freeze well or keep in the fridge for about 5 days.

Getting the water ready to cook them: put a medium pot of water to boil. Not a small pot and not a little water. Enough water to fill the pot ¾ way full. Add about a teaspoon of salt.

Cleaning them: while the water is coming to a boil, cut off the stem end (see picture below). Put in a bowl of cold water. When all the beans are stemmed, swish around the beans in the water to wash them.

Cooking them: when your water is boiling, it's time to cook. Lift the beans out of the cold water, rather than pour off the water. By lifting them, you are leaving any dirt at the bottom of the bowl. Put in the boiling water and cook for anywhere from 3-7 minutes. Why the range? It depends on how crunchy you like your beans. At 3 minutes, they are still squeaky-crunchy. I prefer them cooked longer, but you can decide for yourself.

Eating the beans later?: if you are not eating all the beans right away, you need to chill them down so they stop cooking. Put them in clean cold water. Add ice to cool them down even quicker if you've got it. Drain them well and store in the fridge. To reheat, zap in the microwave for a minute or two.

Eating now?: season with with some salt (if you like), drizzle on some olive oil or mix with some butter.

This basic process of clean, cook in lots of boiling water, and chill down is common to most vegetables. The big difference is how long you cook each vegetable. We'll have more basic vegetable cooking instructions in the future.

Roasted Vegetables - all sorts

Roasted Veggies are a quick, easy and a very tasty alternative to steamed vegetables. Roasting concentrates flavors by evaporating some of the moisture and ups the ante by browning. Browning means flavor. I'm sure someone is looking at the above picture of roasted carrots thinking "Those are burned!" but they are not. As we say in the restaurant kitchen, they are well-caramelized. :-) Trust me. I ate them and they aren't burned.

Roasted veggies are great right out of the oven (careful! they are mighty hot) and they are great as a leftover. They can be added to soups, salads, omelets. Even a delicious snack, hot or cold.

The procedure for roasting is the same: grease up the veg, give a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper, and stick in a hot oven until just tender. Give them a stir halfway cooking to even up the browning. How long it takes depends on how big you cut the chunks of vegetable and how dense the vegetable is (carrots and Brussels sprouts are dense, broccoli and asparagus are not).

A hot oven and oil are key ingredients. No oil and the vegetables will steam. Not hot enough, the vegetables will overcook before they brown. But, once you figure it out, it's really easy.

Be careful when mixing different vegetables. It works if they will all cook in a similar amount of time. So, carrots and Brussels sprouts will work but carrots and green beans will not. When the green beans are done, the carrots will still be raw and by the time the carrots are done, the green beans will be sad, wilted and overcooked. Or plan to throw the green beans in after the carrots have had some alone time in the oven.

Here's some good vegetable choices for roasted vegetables. Roasting temperature is 400° F.

• Asparagus: 10 minutes for medium stalks, 5-7 for skinny stalks
• Beets: 30 minutes for baby beets, an hour for bigger beets. I like to leave them whole because they are easier to peel that way.
• Broccoli: 10 minutes
• Brussels sprouts: 30 minutes
• Carrots: 25-30 minutes
• Cauliflower: 25 minutes
• Green beans: 10 minutes
• Mushrooms: 10-20 minutes, whole. I don't like them raw in the middle so I cook them 20 minutes.
• Potatoes: 25-45 minutes, cut into chunks. Fingerlings can be roasted whole.
• Sweet Potatoes: 30 minutes cut in chunks
• Winter squash: 30 minutes, cut into chunks

Chicken & Broccoli Stir-fry

A successful stir-fry requires a number of things:

• You need to have everything ready before you start cooking. Things happen fast with a stir-fry because it is a high-heat cooking method. If you don't have every ingredient measured and ready to go, things will go south quickly. Garlic burns, meat overcooks. Not pretty. Having everything ready to go is called "mise en place." It's French for putting in place. Mise en place is how restaurants can turn out hundreds of from-scratch meals in very little time. And, it's not just for restaurants. It will make you a better home cook.
• You need to cut your raw ingredients in similar bite-sized pieces. Food needs to cook quickly and if there are big hunks of meat or broccoli in your stir-fry, or if everything is cut in very different sizes, it will not cook quickly nor will it cook evenly. You want the meat and veggies in equivalent bite-sized pieces.
• You need to use really high heat. A stir-fry cooks in 10 minutes or less. For that to happen, you need to get your skillet or wok as hot as you can. Of course, because you are working with very high heat, you have to be on top of what's going on. No answering the phone. No digging through the fridge for ingredients (see first bullet again). It also means that you need to keep stirring the ingredients to keep things from burning. There's a reason it's called stir-fry. The high heat is also what makes it taste so good, so don't be afraid. 

This is about as simple as you can get in a stir-fry. It's not sophisticated but it's quick and filling. Future posts will feature other stir-fries with more complex flavors.

Chicken & Broccoli Stir-fry
(serves 2-3)

1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon dry sherry or Chinese rice wine (see Note)
¾ pound skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into slices about ¼" thick, 2 x 1" long and wide (see Variations)
½ pound broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets, stems peeled and sliced 1/4" thick (see Variations)
1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil
½ - 1 teaspoon minced ginger, depending on your love of ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chicken or vegetable broth
additional soy sauce, if desired

Combine soy sauce, cornstarch and dry sherry in a medium bowl. Mix enough to dissolve cornstarch. Add chicken breast and toss to coat meat with marinade. Marinate in the fridge for 10-30 minutes. Drain chicken pieces, reserving 1 tablespoon of marinade.

Heat oil in skillet or wok until very hot. The oil will shimmer and ripple (but not smoke) when it's hot enough. Don't walk away while the oil is heating up because it can go from hot enough to bursting into flames quickly. [If this ever happens to you, don't panic! Cover the pan with a lid and remove from the heat. Do not remove lid until pan has cooled.]

Add chicken to skillet and immediately start stirring it around. Stir fry for a few minutes until chicken begins to brown. Add ginger, garlic and broccoli. Stir fry for another 5-6 minutes until broccoli is done to your liking.

Add broth and 1 tablespoon of reserved marinade. Cook for 30 seconds. The sauce should boil and thicken somewhat.

Serve with rice, passing soy sauce if additional salt is needed.

Note: Though we don't generally recommend cooking sherry, if you aren't old enough to buy actual sherry, it will do if it's all you can get. Just remember that it has a lot of added salt so you probably won't need additional soy sauce. You can also find Chinese cooking rice wine in most Asian markets, but it also has salt added.

Variations: Beef, pork, shrimp, scallops, or tofu can be substituted for the chicken. They will all cook in about the same time if they are cut into a similar size. Jumbo shrimp should be cut in half lengthwise. Tofu should be cut into 1x1" cubes. Other vegetables can be used, such as bok choy, Napa cabbage, mushrooms, or green beans. Bok choy, Napa cabbage, and mushrooms will cook in less time, about 3 minutes. Green beans will take as long as broccoli to cook.