Don’t ask me when, but somewhere down the line during my first real foray into the ketogenic and low-carb lifestyles I discovered just how DELICIOUS green beans can truly be. Most of the time growing up, they came from cans or sometimes frozen bags of these tiny cut things that didn’t have a lot of flavor, until that once-per-year BBQ when some relative would make them that involved seasoning. Now that I’m an adult, I’ve come to realize that garlic and seasonings are basically the secret to good food.
I’ll also let you know that it took a few tries to get this right. Now, I’m also a fan of doing a quick boil on fresh green beans, but this is a recipe you can also use with canned or frozen, pretty much regardless of cut. I love to make these with fresh green beans, mostly because I can snap them and have that happy memory of being out on the patio in the summer snapping fresh beans.
Down below, I mostly go over one, but they apply mostly to all types: canned, frozen, and fresh. Not particularly because the methodology of cooking is different, but how the greens are presented will be. Canned vegetables are often stored in water, which helps keep them in good condition inside the can for longer, but that means now there’s water in the vegetable that would get cooked out. Frozen vegetables go through a process of “flash-freezing”, which is taking the fresh vegetable as it’s produced and rapidly freezing it to preserve nutrients, flavor, and ripeness. This means it doesn’t have as much water inside of it, unless your freezer is like mine and doesn’t always keep consistent temperatures and now you have freezer burn inside the bags of vegetables. And fresh is, you know, well, fresh.
Ingredients:
Green beans (fresh, frozen, canned, various cuts)
Garlic (minced or fresh)
Butter
Low-heat oil
Salt
Pepper
Water
Frying pan, 1″ deep minimum
1/4 tsp sugar (optional)
Prep your beans and your pan:
If canned: Drain about 3/4 – 4/5 of the water in the can. No need for specifics, just open the can most of the way, keep the lid on, and pour a good amount of liquid down the drain without getting rid of all of it. Water will be used to help speed up the cooking process, since steam will be hotter than any water, regardless if boiling, already in the pan. Stir occasionally until hot and water is boiled away.
If frozen: Don’t need to defrost and drain, just use the ice already in the bag. Put the pan on moderately high and cover with a lid to melt the ice. Stir occasionally until beans darken and almost no water is left in the pan.
If fresh: The end of the green bean that has a solid stem is the side you want to snap. If you’ve never snapped green beans before, then take one side between an index and thumb and the other end with the stem in your other hand. Bend the end with the stem until it “pops” on its own. This might take a few tries before you discover where a “sweet spot” is. Heat up a pan on moderately high to high and add enough water to give about 1/2″ of water coating at the bottom of the pan. The idea is to cover this up and let the steam do a lot of the work until they darken and the water is just about boiled off.
Once the steam has been doing its job and the beans are hot and cooked, add in about a tablespoon of low-heat oil, like olive, and some slivers of butter. The idea is to add some fat, which will bring out flavor. Add in minced garlic, salt, and pepper as the butter melts. If you boil the butter quickly in the pan so that it froths, it will brown and have a richer flavor. However, as soon as it begins to have a browned appearance and a lighter colored foam, take it off the heat before the butter actually begins to burn.
Cook’s Note: As the butter is melted and the garlic becomes aromatic, add about a quarter teaspoon of sugar to enhance the dish. Not mandatory, but it will add to the buttery goodness.
The Family Cookbook 