TracyFood

Recipe: Dilly Beans, Tracy-style. 8 August 2007 11:02 pm

Posted by Tracy in : cooking, eating, garden, recipes, reviews, seasonality, vegan, vegetarian , trackback

Dilly beans are just green beans marinated in dilly brine, and they taste like the very height of summer. My version is based on the recipe in that old favorite, Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home, tweaked to exactly my tastes (more brine! yum brine!) I don’t know beans about home canning (pun intended), but if I ever try it, these will be way up there on my list of things to preserve for off-season home-grown deliciousness (though I soon may attempt freezing green beans, thanks to the July-August issue of Cook’s Illustrated). Anyway….

What You Need (Ingredients and Equipment)

1/2 to 1 pound green beans, preferably fresh-picked from your own garden, but definitely cut into bite-size pieces no matter where you got them (you could also use romano style broad beans or yellow wax beans, and I bet a mix of green and yellow beans would be very pretty)
enough water to cover the beans in:
a pot big enough to hold the green beans and cover them with water
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, or 2 teaspoons dried
strainer or colander
measuring cup and spoons
3-4 large garlic cloves (again, preferably homegrown, but it’s summer and I’m very spoiled right now), pressed or minced
1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/3-1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar (Moosewood says “or honey” but I’ve never tried that variation and can’t vouch for its goodness)
1 tablespoon salt (or more, to taste)

What You Do

Bring the water to a boil in the pot. Cook the beans, covered, until bright green and just tender (3 to 5 minutes). Drain the beans, reserving 1/2 to 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Put the beans in a bowl and toss them with the dill.

Next, make your marinade: combine garlic, red pepper flakes, vinegar, sugar, and salt in your cooking pot and bring to a boil. Try not to inhale the steam unless you really want to clear your sinuses (yowza!) After the mixture has simmered for about two minutes, pour it over the green beans and mix well. Add enough of the reserved cooking liquid to make sure the beans are covered (I like a lot of brine, but do whatever makes you happy). Serve immediately, or let them sit and marinate and get more delicious if you can resist them for that long, in which case I salute you.

Dilly beans are most delicious after at least a 20 minute soak in the marinade, and are good hot, at room temperature, or chilled. Moosewood says they will keep for four days, covered and refrigerated. They also claim this recipe makes four to six servings, but I’m pretty sure that’s crazy talk — I say it serves two or three, tops, unless you’re just eating a few beans at a time, straight out of the container in the fridge, which I hasten to note is a perfectly valid strategy.

Dilly beans are a great addition to green salads, and the brine makes a great salad dressing. In fact, we combined the leftover brine from our last batch with some oil, mustard, diced onion, and just a dribble of honey, and it’s our new house vinaigrette of the moment. Yum!