Green Beans With Fresh and Preserved Lemon
Let me tell you about blogging during a pandemic.
It’s very challenging.
There’s the question of tone. When people are dying left and right, one doesn’t want to appear flip.
Then again, gloom isn’t good, either. People visiting your site want to be entertained.
Then there’s the food question. Thank heaven nobody cooks with toilet paper. But flour, eggs, rice, and meat are all basic when it comes to food blogging, not to mention eating. What good is a recipe if nobody can make it?
My refrigerator door. Note all it is not: immaculate, organized, or especially neat. Blame the refrigerator, which came with the house and is a joke in nearly every way. We were planning to replace it this summer, which involved knocking out the useless cabinet above it (too small, unreachable as neither of us are seven feet tall). Plans. Ha.
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In an attempt to distract myself from the above, I lugged Paula Wolfert’s The Food of Morocco out and began leafing through it. Clocking in at five pounds, The Food of Morocco could double as a free weight.
I lit on Fresh Fava Bean Salad. Fava beans are just beginning to come in here, and I had some in the house.
The trick, if there is one, lies in the preparation: the fava bean are steamed in their pods, peeled and in Wolfert’s recipe, boiled with fresh herbs and lemons. I steamed the beans, but sautéed them. The results were marvelous. That night, I lay in bed wishing I had more fava beans. I don’t, but neither do a lot of other people.
Green beans are another story. Nobody is posting photos of empty bins saying “this is where the green beans should be.”
Alice Waters, writing in the Chez Panisse Vegetable Book, says green beans are in season from early summer through fall. I see them year round in my market, and never from guilt-inducing places.
This being Moroccan food, there’s a preserved lemon in the mix. If preserved lemons are not your thing, or you don’t have them, just add more lemon juice, and perhaps some finely minced peel. The green beans will still be delicious.
Yes, I am asking you to both steam and sauté. Provided you don’t cook them for hours, the result will not be khaki. Besides, you’re so busy right now? No, seriously, the green bean cooks quickly, no matter what–and the results are worthwhile.
About steaming: my steamer setup is a pasta bowl set atop a rack. Bowl and rack are placed in a cheap wok, purchased at my local Goodwill and used for nothing else. The steamer rack comes from 99Ranch and cost nearly nothing.
Making the fava bean dish. Not pictured: lid.
After steaming, please remember to avert your head when lifting the wok lid. Do not get a steam burn and sue me.
Wolfert’s recipe calls for two garlic cloves. I had ten ounces/270 grams of green beans and gigantic garlic cloves, so used one.
Green beans with fresh and preserved lemons isn’t so much spicy as bright. To that end, don’t go crazy with the lemon. I speak as a lemon lover who uses lemon juice with almost every meal. Let the seasoning be assertive without attacking you. You have enough coming at you already, right?
Green beans with fresh and preserved lemons is delicious hot, but it’s even better at room temperature. If possible, make this early in the day, refrigerate it, and then take it out about an hour before eating, allowing it to come to room temperature. If necessary, warm it slightly. The lemonly liquid is heavenly over rice or sopped up with pita bread.
While we ate our green beans with fresh and preserved with lemons alongside inexpensive steak, it truly cries out for lamb of any kind and would be divine with chicken or over rice.
Green Beans with Fresh and Preserved Lemons
Adapted from a recipe in Paula Wolfert’s The Food of Morocco
yield: two-three servings; easily scaled upward
Please read notes before beginning to cook.
10 ounces/270 grams fresh green beans, topped and tailed, sliced in half
1-2 garlic cloves, depending on size
1/4 teaspoon sea salt, plus extra for seasoning (regular is fine if you don’t have sea salt)
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice–from 1-2 lemons
1/2 preserved lemon rind, finely chopped, flesh discarded
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
about 1/4 cup water
A mortar and pestle or small food processor are helpful here, but a large knife is fine if you have neither. You will also need a steamer setup and a medium frying or sautè pan.
Start by trimmiming the beans, then slicing them in half. Slice any that are especially long into thirds. Place them in a bowl that will fit in your steamer. Set aside.
Prepare lemons: squeeze your fresh lemons for juice and mince your preserved lemons.
Now place your garlic clove wherever you intend to pound it–I used a mortar and pestle, Add the 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Bash it. The papery covering will come off. Remove it. Add the cumin and paprika. Pound everything into a paste. Set aside.
Set up your steamer. Make sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of your bowl. Once the water reaches a boil, turn it down to lively simmer and cover the pan with a lid. Steam 5-6 minutes. Avert your head when removing the lid.
Allow the bowl of beans to cool while you place the medium frying pan on another burner. Add the olive oil to the pan and turn heat to medium low.
Scrape the pounded garlic/spice mixture into the pan. Cook gently for a minute or so.
Using oven mitts, pick up the bean bowl and tip beans in carefully. Stir to blend garlic/spice mixture with beans. Cook for two minutes, then add both lemon mixtures. Stir to blend.
Add just enough water to ensure nothing sticks to pot: you want flavorful mixture to adhere to the beans, not the pan.
Turn head down if necessary. Cook for about five minutes. Beans can be crisp tender, or a little more done, if you prefer it. Taste for salt, and either serve immediately, or allow flavors to mellow. They will only improve.
Green beans with fresh and preserved lemon juice may be refrigerated up to five days. Freezing not recommended.
Notes:
The original recipe calls for fava beans, which are steamed whole, unpeeled, for 5-8 minutes, then allowed to cool, peeled, and carry on from there. You might also try this using asparagus, Romano beans, yellow (wax) beans, or any other fresh green beans you have access to. Zucchini would also be very tasty this way.
My garlic cloves were very large, so I used only one. If yours are smaller, use two.
If you loathe cilantro, use all parsley
As noted in the post, if you don’t have preserved lemon, use additonal lemon juice to taste, and if your lemon is organic, a bit of minced peel. Taste for salt; preserved lemons are salty, and your dish may need more to compensate.
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