The benefits of green bean
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What green beans do
What this vegetable does
Held to replenish the Spleen, clear damp and settle how the gut works.
How to eat it
Boil them for a salad, or use them in a stir-fry or a soup.
A yakuzen note
An ingredient that suits feeling off in the heat, or when damp has built up.
Green bean is sweet and neutral in nature and is held to settle how the gut works. By replenishing the Spleen and clearing damp, it eases the load that heat and humidity put on the body. It suits easing summer tiredness, poor digestion and heaviness in particular, and works widely in salads, soups and stir-fries.
TOC
When green beans are in season, the kinds, and how to choose
If you want to bring in what green beans do, deliciously, knowing the season, the kinds and how to choose makes them easier to use. Their appeal is a crisp bite and a vivid green, and they are the green and yellow vegetable that stands for summer.
In season in summer, a bean eaten as a young pod
Green beans are kidney beans picked while the pods are still young and tender. Left to ripen and dried, the beans become haricot and other dried beans. They are in season in summer, roughly June to September, at their peak in July and August. The main producing areas are Chiba, Hokkaido, Fukushima and Kagoshima, and greenhouse-grown beans are in the shops all year. The Japanese name is said to come from the Edo-period monk Ingen, though one account holds that what he brought was the hyacinth bean. In the Kansai region they are also called sandomame, because they can be harvested three times a year. Eaten pod and all, they are classed as a deeply green vegetable, and their colour is valued in cooking.
Round-podded, flat-podded and dojo green beans
Green beans come in several kinds by pod shape, so you can choose by dish.
| kinds | What stands out |
|---|---|
| Round-podded | The most common. Round in section and tender |
| Flat-podded (Morocco beans and the like) | Flat and large in the pod. Thick-fleshed with something to chew on |
| Dojo green bean | Long and slim, delicate in the mouth |
For a crisp texture, slim round-podded beans; for something with body, flat-podded Morocco beans: choose by dish. All of them show their sweetness and colour best blanched briefly.
How to choose them and prepare them
When choosing fresh green beans, these points make it easier to tell.
- Deep green, taut and glossy on the surface
- Slim and straight, with the beans not standing out too much through the pod
- Snapping cleanly when bent, and juicy
To prepare them, cut off both ends. Most varieties now have no string, but where there is one, snapping the end and pulling takes it off. Blanched briefly in salted water and dropped into cold water, they come out bright in colour and crisp.
How to eat green beans
Green beans sit well in Japanese, Western and Chinese cooking alike, drawing on their crisp texture and colour. Here are the standard ways.
As ohitashi, dressed in sesame, or in a salad
Beans blanched in salted water, steeped in dashi as ohitashi, or dressed in sesame, white sesame tofu or sesame miso, let you taste their sweetness. Dressed with mayonnaise or a vinaigrette, they make an easy dish. Chilled into a salad, they are clean-tasting even in summer, and paired with egg and tuna as in a salade niçoise they finish well in colour. Overboiling costs them their texture, so the trick is to drop them into cold water as soon as the green is bright.
Wrapped in meat, stir-fried, or as tempura
Wrapped in pork or beef and grilled, they are a standard dish where their crisp texture gives the accent. Stir-fried with minced meat, or Chinese-style with salt or dried shrimp, they have you reaching for rice. Battered as tempura or kakiage, their sweetness comes forward. Adding them for colour to a simmered dish or chikuzenni is another standard, and the colour holds well when cooked. Blanching them briefly first shortens the frying time and gives a better colour and texture. They go well with oil, and even a quick fry gives a good gloss.
How to keep green beans
Green beans do not like drying out and go limp easily if left. Wrap them in damp kitchen paper, put them in a plastic bag, keep them in the vegetable drawer of the fridge and use them soon. If you cannot use them up, blanch them on the firm side in salted water, wipe them dry and freeze them in a bag, ready to go straight from frozen into stir-fries, simmered dishes and soups. Blanching before freezing holds the colour and texture better than freezing them raw.
Alongside this, the same bean left to ripen, The benefits of haricot bean and one likewise in season in summer, The benefits of eggplant as a guide when building a summer table.
Green beans, in season in summer, are a useful vegetable that brings colour and texture to ohitashi, dressed dishes, meat rolls and stir-fries. Round-podded for dressed dishes, flat-podded for stir-fries and simmered dishes: using each kind for what it does best brings out what it has. Bring the juicy green beans that only summer gives to your seasonal table.
