Green Beans

Ingredients

• 1 lb green beans, trimmed
• 1/2 lb (5 thick-cut slices) bacon
• 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1/3 cup chopped nuts (e.g. walnuts or almonds) (see tip)
• 1 lemon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

Preparation

1. Trim and blanche green beans.

   • Fill a large bowl with ice water.

   • Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

   • Boil the green beans for until they're bright green and taste "tender-crisp", 3-5 min.

   • Quickly transfer the green beans to the ice water.

   • Once the green beans have cooled completely, drain the water and pat them dry with a paper towel.

2. Cook the bacon in a large frying pan. When the bacon is done, move it to a paper towel to cool. Drain most of the bacon grease, but reserve about 1/4 cup for the next step.

3. Toast the chopped nuts in the bacon grease.

   • Squeeze the lemon and have the juice ready.

   • Add the nuts to the hot grease all at once.

   • Start stirring immediately.

   • Continue toasting until the nuts are deep brown, but not burnt, 1-2 min.

   • Stop the nuts from toasting by adding some lemon juice.

4. Make a glaze by adding lemon juice and stirring vigorously.

   • The goal is to create an emulsion between the bacon grease and the lemon juice.

   • If the glaze is too runny, let more water boil off.

   • If the glaze is too greasy, add more lemon juice.

5. Add the green beans to the pan and toss to mix. Chop the bacon, then add it and the blue cheese and toss to mix again. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Tips & Notes

1. I actually used lemonade instead of lemon juice the first time I did this.
   I couldn't really taste the lemonade, but I suspect that the small amount of sugar might've helped combine all the flavors.

References

http://www.seriouseats.com/2017/08/the-food-lab-green-beans-haricots-verts-amandine.html http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/06/are-the-rules-of-big-pot-blanching-true.html