Southern-Style Green Beans Recipe - Simply Stacie (2024)

FAQs

How does Julia Child cook green beans? ›

Pour 4 quarts of water and 2 Tbsp salt into a Dutch oven or large pot and bring to a boil. Add green beans and cook until soft and slightly overdone but not mushy, about 9 minutes. Drain green beans into a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside to drain and dry.

Sautéed green beans only require a few ingredients and about 10 minutes to make, and this cooking method also saves space in the oven for you to roast your main course. While blanching the green beans before sautéing them isn't an essential step, it can lend a nice crunch and vibrant color to them.

Not only are they relatively inexpensive, green beans are rich in vitamin C and beta-carotene, an antioxidant that gives fruits and vegetables their color. The vegetable helps fight inflammation and is a good source of folate and potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure.

For their first meal in France, Paul ordered oysters, sole meunière and a green salad. Child devoured the meal, calling it “perfection.” Alex Prud'homme, Child's grandnephew and cowriter of her memoir, “My Life in France,” opened the book with this now famous scene.

Your Beans Will Cook Faster

Well, creating an alkaline (or basic) environment by adding a small amount (about 1 teaspoon per cup of dry beans) of baking soda to your soaking/cooking water can actually help your beans cook faster.

Put a pan of salted water on to boil. Meanwhile, trim the the beans. Once the water is boiling, steam or boil the beans until tender. Drain well, then tip the cooked beans into the bowl with your dressing and toss everything together, making sure all the beans get coated.

They are knocked out by heat so putting vegetables into a big pot of boiling water deactivates the enzymes before they can break down the chlorophyll. Briefly steaming greens is the best way to retain their flavour and nutrients.

Fresh green beans in good condition will feel firm and should snap apart when bent. Older green beans that feel limp and have started to develop a slimy texture are no longer safe to eat. If you see any fuzzy mold on them, they are definitely too bad to eat.

Using a high concentration of salt in the blanching water (2 tablespoons per quart of water) allows the green beans to tenderize rapidly, so their bright green color is preserved. The large amount of salt in the blanching water penetrates the beans' sturdy skins to season them more fully than smaller amounts would.

Why are my sautéed green beans tough? They would only be tough if they were undercooked. By briefly simmering them, then sautéing the green beans, they're perfectly crisp tender, and flavorful.

What is the difference between blanched and sauteed? ›

Blanching is all about the color, unless you are blanching and shocking to cook later. You loss a lot of nutrients with the blanching liquid, and some of the flavor. Sauteeing only is harder to do w/o overcooking, or cooking unevenly, but it yeilds better flavor.

Green beans contain phytic acid that can bind with certain minerals such as iron and prevent them from being absorbed. Those who have a mineral deficiency should consult a doctor before consuming additional green beans. Apart from this, green beans are good for you and very healthy.

Broccoli: Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, arugula and kale are rich in sulforaphane, an antioxidant that helps decrease inflammation. They also contain soluble fiber, which keeps digestion on track.

Julia Child revolutionized American cuisine through her French cooking school, award-winning cookbooks, and world-renowned television programs by presenting an approachable version of sophisticated French cooking to her eager audience for four decades.

In 1948, the couple was posted to Paris for Paul's work. It was in Paris, that Child began to take cooking seriously. She enrolled in the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. During this time, she also met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.

She Introduced America to the Cooking Show

Child wasn't the first chef on television (Fanny Craddock in the UK and James Beard in America preceded her), but The French Chef was the first nationwide cooking show when it debuted in February of 1963.