20 August 2016

The “getting creative with green beans” series

Walt picked three more pounds of green beans — haricots verts — yesterday. He's been bringing in several pounds a week since the end of July, so we are eating a lot of beans and freezing a lot more. See other recent green beans posts here.

The idea I found in my googling around the web this time was to make what the recipe called « une omelette aux haricots verts ». It's not really an omelet in my book, but a frittata. That's an Italian-style egg concoction that could be called « une omelette plate » — a flat, not folded omelet — or a Spanish-style tortilla made with green beans rather than potatoes. You can serve and eat the frittata hot, warm, or cold, as you prefer.


Usually, making a frittata is easier than making a French-style omelette. The flat omelet doesn't need to be cooked baveuse, or "runny," like a folded omelette. It's less delicate but just as delicious, because it's full of good vegetables and, optionally, meat. The trick in the case of this green-bean frittata is to get it cooked all the way through. It's so big that flipping it over is a challenge.

What you do is cook about a pound (I used 500 grams) of green beans so that they are as crunchy or tender as you like them. I cooked them in a steamer for 15 or 20 minutes, making them tender but not mushy. Then you beat together six eggs in a big bowl with salt, pepper, herbs (chives in this case), and a good handful of grated cheese (Swiss, Cheddar, or Parmesan). I added some diced ham. Put the cooked green beans in the bowl with the eggs and mix everything together delicately. Pour the mixture into a hot non-stick skillet with some oil or butter and let it cook on low heat until the bottom is firm and the frittata will slide around in the pan when you shake it.

Then you have two options. You can set the pan under the broiler in the oven to cook the top, or you can turn it over and finish cooking it on top of the stove. To do so, slide it out of the pan onto a big plate, the cooked bottom side still facing down. Turn the skillet over to cover the top of frittata, and using mitts or potholders to keep from burning your hands, turn the whole thing upside down so that the frittata is cooked-side up in the pan. Put it back on the heat for a few minutes to finish the cooking. As you can see, one side is browned, and the other side is just barely cooked.

18 comments:

  1. As you said, it looks like a Mexican omelet. Must be be very good.

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    1. So good, in fact, that it has given you virtual hiccups!

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    2. I meant to post this link to the site I based my frittata on. CHM, remember when Frank was here all those years ago and I made this kind of flat omelet? Frank, whose family was Italian, called it a vritta or something like that.

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    3. No, unfortunately. Unlike you, I don't have la mémoire de l'estomac.

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  2. Mmmmmm! That look delish... Pauline does much the same. Especially since we now get, on average, twelve eggs a week!!
    Beans are just coming on stream, but we've been through courgette frittata and courgette egga in the last week.
    Beans will make a nice change....
    The egga, because it contains bread, is much lighter........ A bit like "Eggy Bread" with veg!
    We tend to throw pretty much anything at these flat omlettes.... Our freezer of fourteen years, gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago.... so we are currently eating anything that was salvageable by the time the new one arrived.
    So the next one will contain red peppers!!

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    1. Our chest freezer is now 11 years old. I think we will buy a new one next spring, assuming this one lasts that long. I want an upright freezer with drawers in it. It's too hard to find anything in the chest-style freezer.

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    2. Our new one would meet your requirements...
      It is a very large Brandt [BFU584YNW]....and replaces an earlier model.
      Not cheap, but assuming it lasts as long, not much per year!!
      And this one is less hungry on the electric!!

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  3. A one-dish meal!
    Another bean dish I like is Turkish-style green beans and tomatoes, braised slowly in oil. There's a recipe on the New York Times.

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    1. Sounds good. I think this Indian dish I made using okra would be really good made with green beans instead.

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  4. I get so hungry when I see this, Ken! By the way, an upright freezer is indeed the best solution.

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    1. People used to say that with an upright freezer, every time you opened the door all the cold air fell out, making the freezer less efficient. But the models with drawers to hold the food would take care of that, holding in the cold better, I think. Having the freezer give out, as happened to my mother in America a few years ago and recently with Tim and Pauline, would be a catastrophe for us. Well, inconvenient, anyway...

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    2. After 11 years, the "give out"-moment is about to come, but you cannot predict when. So keep your eyes open now for a good offer, and buy. Better prevent that "give out"-stress!

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    3. NO, Ken....catastrophic.....
      But it has given the chance for a good sort out....
      There was even a frozen Water Vole in there...
      kept because someone in Tours is doing a study as to which varieties are in the area...
      Then when no reply came, forgotten!!

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    4. "Frozen water vole" made me think you were having a Wind in the Willows moment.

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  5. It's difficult for me to imagine green beans in a frittata, but I'll take your word for it being good. Your beans look pretty small like the ones we call "French green beans". I love chives with egg dishes.

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  6. The title to your post gave me a laugh. It looks good and, yes, that's what folks in these parts would call a frittata. Some salsa might be tasty with it.

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