My vegetable adventure began with butternut squash. It didn’t go so well. I made a recipe from Fine Cooking for sauteed butternut squash chunks with ginger, garlic, and spices. As Laurie put it, “The flavor is good, but the texture is bland.” I found that any given chunk was either stringy or mushy. Conclusion: I still don’t understand butternut squash.
But then I turned around and discovered a new favorite green bean recipe, one so good that even Iris liked it. (Actually, Iris has shown an unusual willingness to try vegetables lately. I approve, but where is her independent spirit, her stick-it-to-the-man gumption?) The recipe comes from Andrea Chesman’s book The Roasted Vegetable. I can’t say I actually recommend this book. It’s poorly organized; it has no mention of broccoli or cauliflower; and it has a section of granola recipes, apparently on the grounds that the author has some good granola recipes. But the green bean recipe nearly lives up to its title: World’s Best Green Beans.
Green beans and I already get along fine. I tend to prepare them either stewed with tomatoes and garlic or braised with duck legs, shallots, fish sauce, and chiles. I also love Szechuan dry-fried green beans, which I haven’t made in too long. But I’d never roasted a green bean. I called them “frizzled green beans,” and Iris thought the name was funny. We’ll be making these often.
**FRIZZLED GREEN BEANS**
Adapted from _The Roasted Vegetable_, Andrea Chesman
Serves 2, plus Iris
1 pound green beans, trimmed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
Preheat the oven to 500°F. Toss the green beans with the olive oil and a generous sprinkle of salt. Lay them out on a foil-lined half-sheet pan in approximately a single layer. Roast for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with additional salt to taste and serve immediately.
**NOTE:** I added some slivered almonds in the last three minutes of cooking, and it was a good move.
Knowing that that recipe was in an actual cookbook actually kinda frightens me. I’m hoping it was more of a ‘Have you ever considered roasting green beans? just throw em in a pan in the oven for 15 minutes and they go great with…’ and then lead into a bigger recipe. But, on a page, all by itself, I half expect the next page to be:
Best Toast Ever.
Ingredients:
.5g marijuana
2 slices of bread
1 pat of butter (optional)
Step 1: Important: Put bread in toaster before any other steps.
Step 2: Smoke marijuana.
Step 3: Once suitably munchy, push down lever on toaster.
Step 4: Once toast is expelled from toaster, eat. Optionally, spread butter on toast with knife before eating. You will find that this is, indeed, the best. toast. EVAR.
Sorry. Too sarcastic? (BTW, love the commercial. Caught it during Iron Chef… =) )
Have you tried roasting squash at 500F (seriously)?
Oh, and leave the skin on if you want interesting texture — it’s crunchy enough to eat if it’s caramelized enough.
I will try that, Laurel. After I try John’s recipe, of course.
I slice butternut squash very thin, and brush it with a mixture of olive oil, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and whatever herb I feel like (usually thyme or rosemary)–then bake at 400 until it’s soft and sizzly. (Come to think of it, that’s exactly how I cook asparagus, except it gets crispy instead of soft.)