This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
I was looking for a salad that would work well with Coronation Chicken and rice and decided on green beans. This was for a picnic and so a few lettuce leaves wouldn’t cut it as they weren’t likely to withstand any breeze that might appear – I didn’t fancy flying frisee. So I Googled ‘green bean salad’ and came up with Yotam Ottolenghi’s salad with peanuts and lime.
As we had toasted almonds in the chicken dish, I decided to replace the peanuts and some of the other spices with pomegranate seeds and pink peppercorns. If you would like to see his original recipe – and goodness knows he is a fabulous cook – then click here. However, I would like to humbly say that my version was also pretty damn good.
GREEN BEAN SALAD WITH PINK PEPPERCORNS
Ingredients serves 8 as side dish
400g sugar snaps
400g French beans, trimmed
3 tbsp oil
3 shallots, finely chopped
5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 sticks lemongrass, trimmed and finely chopped
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1-2 tbspn pink peppercorns
Handful pomegranate seeds
Half tsp salt
Handful coriander leaves, roughly chopped
How to prepare
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the beans and cook for four minutes then immediately drain and refresh under cold water. This will give you perfectly cooked beans and retain the wonderful green colour. Dry the beans by laying them out on a clean tea towel.
Heat the oil in a large deep sided frying pan. On a medium heat, fry the shallots, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, lime zest, coriander seeds and salt for 5 – 10 mins until golden brown. Then add the beans to the pan and stir-fry for a minute or so until everything is combined and the beans are warmed through. Remove from the heat and stir through the coriander and lime juice and serve. Just as good eaten cold.
Lots more mouthwateringly good salad recipes here