3 recipes that use green beans, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Thai green chicken curry, takes 30 minutes. It is most often cooked with aubergine, basil leaves and boneless chicken thighs.
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A weeknight green curry that tastes like a takeaway. Frying the paste in the thick top layer of coconut milk wakes up the lemongrass and chilli, and a last-minute balance of fish sauce, lime and a little sugar makes it sing.
A hearty Italian vegetable soup with cannellini beans, cabbage and a little spaghetti, finished with a bright basil and tomato pesto stirred in at the end. Don't let it boil hard once the vegetables are in: over-boiled soups lose their colour and body. Serve hot with crisp garlic toast.
Tempura (天ぷら) became a Tokyo street food in the Edo period, when stalls fried it to order by the city's riverbanks. The secret to the thin, lacy coating is an ice-cold, lumpy batter mixed at the last second and vegetables fried in small batches. Sweet potato, aubergine, pepper, shiitake and green beans all work well. Serve straight from the pan with a light dipping sauce and grated daikon. Chef's tip: keep everything cold. Use ice-cold water, mix the batter only seconds before frying, leave it lumpy, and stand the bowl in a larger bowl of ice. Cold batter hitting hot oil is what makes the lacy, crackly shell that Tokyo tempura masters prize.
