Broad Green Beans

Broad Green Beans – The Swiss Way – Christian’s Recipe

This recipe is super simple but very, very good.  The result will surprise you.  The secret is to cook the beans and tomatoes for a long time, reducing the tomato.  It is really easy to grow broad beans – we grow scarlet bee runner beans.  The flowers are pretty enough to use the plant as an ornamental and let it grow up a pergola or wall. Sometimes you can buy organic broad beans at farmers markets or organic farms.  Most people don't know how to cook them, but they are easier to grow and harvest than string beans.  

Ingredients:

-Snap and wash approx. 3.3 lb broad beans (1500 g).

-2 onions

-a few sprigs of winter or summer savory

-approx. 2-3 lbs tomatoes

-2 cloves garlic
-sea salt to taste
-organic olive oil (Costco)

Prep and Cooking:

Dice: 2 onions (0.85 lb or 388 g); sauté in olive oil (and some salt) till translucent. 

Add the beans and the rest of 0.42 oz salt (12 g -- about 2 tsp, depending on the kind of salt).

Stir occasionally.  The beans will release liquid for steaming.

Cut 2.6 lb tomatoes (1183 g) into large chunks; add. 

Add the summer savory – you can just add the entire stem and take the bare stem out after cooking.

Squeeze 3 cloves of garlic (3/4 oz or 21 g) into pan.

Reduce well.  Cooking time: about an hour.