Friends, I have been defeated by the wax bean.
I said, starting out this new blogging series, that I would give you three ways to eat a given fruit or vegetable. Three! Three is a culturally important number, and also it just isn’t that many, so the project isn’t overwhelming. But. Wax beans are delicate. Wax beans are subtle.
Wax beans are kind of wimps.
So I have two failed attempts and two successes, and you will have to pitch in and help me out here. The failed attempts: the first one was a hoisin sauce with rice vinegar, chopped fresh cilantro, and roasted (unsalted) peanuts. It was a really good sauce. Everybody ate it all right up and complimented the sauce. And the beans…disappeared. It was like eating bean-shaped sauce. This is not the goal! So we are going to put that sauce on something more robust, like salmon or broccoli or brussels sprouts. So okay, I thought. A bit more subtle. A bit more delicate. I sauteed the wax beans in sage brown butter. Sage brown butter! Everybody loves sage brown butter! (Especially me.) But again: the flavor ended up being bean-shaped sage brown butter. The beans just…disappeared.
Well, fee, I said, because I collect fake swears like that. So here are your two, count them, two wax bean suggestions, and please feel free to help me out in the comments:
1. Steamed with lemon juice. Yes, really. Simple. Nice. And it’s about all wax beans can take.
2. Roasted with a tiny bit of garlic. No, really, less garlic than that. This is one of the rare times where the phrase “one clove of garlic” makes any sense. For years and years I could not make it make sense, and now I know: it is for wax beans. Throw ’em in the oven at 425 F for 12-15 minutes, and then eat. (This is also good with green beans. Green beans are more sure of themselves. Green beans stand up for themselves against other flavors. But we cannot live by green beans alone.)
Previous produce trio: cucumbers, and if you have more cucumber suggestions, please add them in the comments, because lordy do we have cucumbers. This morning in my weekly letter to Mark’s grandfather I told him I had been trying to remember to give cucumbers to all the people I see whom I like, and I was thinking of lowering the bar to people I see whom I am kind of lukewarm on. Because cucumbers. Uff da.
And, as we proceed deeper into the Minnesota summer, soon we will reach the part of the year when one offers zucchini to ENEMIES!
Possibly cucumbers are like that in a good year.