To my mind, there are only two routes to take when it comes to green beans. Route one: cold and snappy. Route two: tomato-braised and silky soft. Today we’re here for route one. Perhaps we’ll explore route two another day, in the near future.
Cold and snappy is the quick-cook route. You blanch the beans in heavily salted water until their squeakiness and waxiness have gone, but pleasing snappiness remains. You immediately plunge them into a large bowl of icy water to preserve that snappy state and bring them down to cold-cold, as opposed to just no longer warm.
Then you pat the beans dry (crucial! don’t skip!) and dress, in this case with a light, broken dressing of garlic, lemon and anchovy. You pile the beans high on indivual plates or one large platter. You scatter with buttery, toasted pine nuts. You drizzle with the good olive oil. And that’s it. Once again, this is simple summer eating.
You could serve these alongside pretty much anything. Your favourite pasta, a frittata, tinned fish, lamb chops, or this schiacciata and an upturned pot of ricotta. These are just some of the things that spring to mind as particularly good combinations for the route one beans.
