This 'Fiery Green Beans' dish was meant as a side dish. But I'm not usually motivated enough to make several dishes for a meal so I turned it into a main by serving it as a pasta dish. It coped admirably.
The recipe comes from one of my newest and worst titled cookbooks, "Veggiestan: a vegetable-lover's tour of the middle east" by Sally Butcher. Ironic surname on a vegetarian recipe collection but I hope neither of us have butchered middle eastern flavours too much with our reinterpretations.
Serves 4 as a vegetable side dish (or 2-3 as a pasta main)
300g (10 1/2 oz) French or runner beans
butter, for frying
1 red onion, finely sliced
8 cherry tomatoes (or more, why not?)
3 garlic cloves
juice and zest of 1 lime
1 tsp of rosewater
2 tsp of harissa paste
5 Tbsp olive oil
"Top and tail your beans, and de-string them if you're using runner beans. French beans should be cut in half, runners cut on the diagonal into 5cm (2") striplets. Now blanch them in boiling water for about 4 minutes and set to drain.
Heat a knob of butter in the pan and throw in the onion: once it has softened, add the tomatoes and garlic, turn the heat down and leave them to sweat a little. After about 5 minutes add your green beans and sweat stuff a little more before taking it off the heat.
Whisk the rest of the ingredients together. Check the seasoning - you may need to add salt, although harissa paste is usually well seasoned. Stir the dressing gently though the beans and then leave the whole thing to cool. You can serve this hot or cold, but it is undoubtedly at its best at room temperature or above. Green beans have never been so exciting"
I served mine over fettucine and it made a well balanced vegetarian main.
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