Green beans with buttered breadcrumbs: bright green, crisp, Polish summer
A Polish summer classic in twenty minutes: beans boiled briefly in a lot of salted water without a lid, shocked in ice so they stay green, and showered with breadcrumbs browned in butter. Three things decide the result: plenty of water, no lid, and ice the moment they are drained. A side for meat, or a whole summer dinner with new potatoes.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Beans 12 min
- Buttered crumbs 8 min
Step by step
0 / 5 done
Trim the beans
Snap off the stem ends; the other tip can stay, it is edible and looks better. Break very long pods in half. Put on a large pot of well-salted water and set out a bowl of iced water. If serving with potatoes, put them on first: new potatoes take about 20 minutes.
Ingredients: 700 g green beans · 2500 ml water · 2 tbsp salt
TipThere should be plenty of water: 2.5 litres for 700 g. Too little and the temperature drops below boiling when the beans go in, so they steam rather than boil and turn grey.
Stem ends snapped, a big pot on
Boil briefly, uncovered
Drop the beans into boiling water and cook uncovered 5–7 minutes (young) or 8–10 (thicker). Test: a pod should be tender but clearly springy. A lid traps the volatile acids released by the beans, which dull the green pigment; without it they escape with the steam.
TipSalt in the water seasons the pods right through, which salt sprinkled on the plate cannot make up for. The water should be clearly salty, like a well-seasoned broth.
No lid, seven minutes, tested for spring
Shock in ice
Drain and immediately tip into the bowl of iced water for 1 minute. That stops the cooking and fixes the colour. Then drain thoroughly and dry on a cloth; wet beans would soak the crumbs.
A minute in ice, then dried
Brown the crumbs in butter
Melt the butter in a pan, wait for the foaming to stop, add the breadcrumbs and fry over medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring constantly, until golden and nutty-smelling. Add the crushed garlic for the last 20 seconds.
Ingredients: 70 g butter · 5 tbsp breadcrumbs · 1 clove garlic · ½ pcs lemon · ½ tsp black pepper
TipBreadcrumbs are already dry, so very little separates golden from burnt. Stir without stopping and take them off a shade earlier than seems right: they keep colouring in the pan.
Three minutes, constant stirring, the colour of hazelnut
Combine and serve
Add the beans to the pan and toss until coated and warmed through, 1 minute. Squeeze over lemon, grind on pepper. Serve at once, with new potatoes and dill or beside a cutlet.
Ingredients: 800 g new potatoes · ½ bunch dill
A minute in the pan, lemon, pepper
Before you start
With egg
A chopped hard-boiled egg mixed into the crumbs: the classic topping for cauliflower, just as good on beans. It turns a side into a meal.
Frozen beans
Drop them straight from the freezer into boiling water and cook 4–5 minutes. Don't thaw first: thawed, they turn limp and watery.
For the freezer
Dry blanched and shocked beans and freeze on a tray. In winter drop them into boiling water for 3 minutes and shower with fresh buttered crumbs.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
