Green beans with lime-chili-anchovy dressing

I planted my beans late this year, so now I’m dealing with a deluge of beans just when ordinarily I’d be winding down a bit. So here’s yet another way to cook them.

Summer beans with a spicy lime spritz

From Mario Batali in “Food & Wine Best of the Best (2012)”

Ingredients

1 pound green beans, trimmed and snapped into roughly 3-inch pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 red onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Hot pepper flakes

2 teaspoons anchovy paste

Juice of 1 lime

Method

Blanch beans in boiling salted water until just tender. Drain and transfer to an ice bath. When cool, drain in a colander.

In large saute pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, a generous sprinkle of hot pepper flakes to taste and anchovy paste. Cook until onions are beginning to brown. Add beans and cook about 4 minutes until hot and coated with sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Squeeze lime juice onto beans.

Rating: It works. A bit of heat and nice lime to go with the garlic. There was dressing left at the bottom of the pan, and I tossed it with more olive oil and vinegar to make a quite tasty salad dressing with the leftovers.