haricot vert

tonight for dinner, i decided to try out a recipe i’d seen on smitten kitchen a few days ago.  last weekend, at the farmer’s market, one of the vendors was selling haricot vert (or is it haricots verts if there is more than one bean?  i really know zero french, so please forgive me if my french grammar has issues) and beautiful heirloom tomatoes (must have a greenhouse–it’s waaaaay too early for tomatoes up here.).  then, i saw this great recipe.  it’s very simple.  just some of these long french green beans, shallots, a little butter, salt, pepper and a squeeze lemon.  i added a little canned tuna and a few olives to make it feel more like a meal and less like a side dish, but it would have been just fine without.  the beans were so long–some were probably 8 or 9 inches!  and smitten kitchen’s right about the cooking time.  i boiled mine for 4 minutes (she recommends 3.5 but the timer on my oven doesn’t do fractions of minutes and i like my beans slightly over-cooked*) and they were perfect!  really quite tasty.  the lemon adds a really nice touch.  the best part?  since beans and tomatoes aren’t even truly in season yet, i have a long time to enjoy this dish all summer long.

*i don’t know why everyone thinks that green beans need to retain their crispness in order to be good.  i used to think i didn’t really like green beans (especially when they squeak in your teeth), but then i ate them once at a restaurant in paris.  they were soft and delicious and perfectly salted and i just loved them and i realized that the key to enjoying green beans (at least for me) is to cook them until they are no longer crisp or squeaky.  maybe it’s the difference between a green bean and a haricot vert?