Weekend Herb Blogging: Lemon and Hazelnut Green Beans
Posted by: ashleystravel in Vegetables, Vegetarian
This is a post for Weekend Herb Blogging.
This week it is hosted by Ahn over at Food Lover’s Journey!
I have started to realize that I have been using a lot of nuts in my recipes, specifically (but not limited to) hazelnuts. I don’t know how or why this attraction to hazelnuts started. Maybe it is because of my love of Nutella, which is a hazelnut-based spread. And knowing that a girl cannot live on Nutella alone, I have extended my search for other tasty uses of hazelnuts. Which means looking into non-dessert options. I have come up with a few posts that have used hazelnuts, but there is no stopping me! I found this recipe in the November 2006 edition of Food & Wine Magazine. To no one’s suprise, I have altered it slightly.
I did have a bit of a hiccup when cooking this dish. I had forgotten to toast the hazelnuts when I tossed them in the bowl with the butter, lemon rind and salt. I made an effort to pull them out and toss them into the preheated pan. But rind stuck to the nuts, causing a bit of a burn all around. I will call them extra-toasted hazelnuts! Over all, I really enjoyed this recipe. Taking a bite with the green beans and hazelnuts at the same time created such a feeling of pleasure in my mouth. And a non-guilty pleasure at that. Besides my excessive use of butter, this is a pretty healthy dish. Feel free to cut down some of the butter, I added extra to the original recipe.
Lemon Hazelnut Green Beans
The Ingredients
- 2 1/2 Tbsp. butter
- 3 Tbsp. finely chopped hazelnuts, toasted
- 1 1/2 tsp. grated lemon rind (save the lemon for juicing)
- 2 1/4 tsp. salt, divided
- 8 cups of water
- 1 1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed
- Combine butter, hazelnuts, lemon rind and 1/2 tsp. salt in a small bowl and stir with a fork until well blended.
- Combine 8 cups of water and 1 3/4 tsp. of salt in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and add green beans. Cook for 4 minutes. Drain.
- Return sauce pot to medium heat and add beans and butter, cooking at least 3 minutes or longer if butter has not finished melting.
- Give the reserved lemon a good squeze or two over the mixture. Toss gently to coat.
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This is a type of salad I would love to eat! Like you, I really like using nuts in cooking/baking.
Thanks for participating in WHB!
Sounds delicious. I can imagine the taste of the beans after they finish cooking in the butter. I do try to be very moderate in my use of butter, but nothing else tastes quite as good.