Dragon Tongue Beans
Excuse the quiet over here. Just before Prince stunned the world, John fell ill, necessitating some quality time at the hospital, where we impressed the nurses with our lifting technique. He is home now, rapidly recovering, almost his usual self.
As you might imagine, recent events left little time or energy for cooking.
—
Saturday, while dashing through the market, I spotted these Dragon Tongue beans.
According to Alice Waters, in The Art of Simple Food II, Dragon Tongue beans are “an unusual wax bush bean,” botanically related to the green bean. Waters prefers preparing them minimally. Given my digestion, I lean toward a Zuni Café Cookbook recipe for Long Cooked Romano Beans. Romano beans and Dragon Tongues are alike in size and shape, meaning either works well here.
As Laurie Colwin writes in Home Cooking, “I like vegetables to be very tender. I like a string bean that gives and does not fight back.” Colwin was writing in confessional mode. Long-Cooked Beans do fly in the face of most spring vegetable cookery, asking you to braise the beans far beyond sprightliness into limpid, beige submission. Stay the course and you’ll be amply rewarded: long cooking means deeply flavorful vegetables of immense character, with an almost meaty roundedness. Colwin would have adored this dish.
The chili flakes aren’t for kicks. Rather, they add gentle flavor. Use a light hand. Should you be seized by the desire to photograph that pretty red, do not inhale while leaning in to focus. The resulting sneezing fit frightened my cat.
Long cooked beans pair nicely with poultry, lamb, or beef; Rodgers suggests polenta as well.
If Dragon Tongue Beans aren’t available, substitute Romano. If you want to use green or wax beans, mind your pot, as they’ll require perhaps half the cooking time to achieve the desired result: a completely collapsed, soft dish of beans whose dull appearance belies their big flavors.
Long-Cooked Dragon Tongue Beans
Adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, by Judy Rodgers
Yield: two servings. Recipe easily scaled upward
Preparation time: 10 minutes prep, 2 hours cooking
3/4 pound Dragon Tongue beans
2-4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
small pinch chili flakes (about 1/8th teaspoon)
salt to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
Rinse beans if necessary. Trim the ends and cut as you wish. I like them in bite-sized pieces, but leave them larger if you prefer.
Place beans in a lidded 3-4 quart saucepan and mix olive oil in with your hands or a wooden spoon, ensuring olive oil is evenly distributed amongst the beans. Mix in chili flakes and salt. Place garlic on top. Cover.
Turn the heat to medium low. You may have to fuss with the heat a bit initially: Rodgers says you want to hear the beans sizzling gently. During the first 30 minutes of cooking, stir quickly a couple times. Don’t let the heat get so high the beans brown. Avoid temptation to add water or other liquid: the steaming in olive oil alone makes this dish.
After 30 minutes, taste for salt. Cover, turn the flame down to the lowest setting, and cook for 2 hours, stirring once or twice. The beans will turn beige and collapse, losing all their beautiful purple stripes but tasting wonderful nevertheless.
Notes: As there are so few ingredients, this is the time to use your best olive oil and sea salt.
Original recipe uses Romano beans: feel free to substitute these. If using green or wax beans, cut cooking time by at least half and watch closely, as they will cook faster.
Serve alongside poultry, pork, lamb, beef, or atop polenta.
Will keep in a covered container, refrigerated, up the three days. Do not freeze.
Photo Credit: Herb Ritts, from Prince: The Hits 2
Share:
You might also like:
Green Beans With Fresh and Preserved Lemon
Let me tell you about blogging during a pandemic. It’s very challenging. There’s the question of tone. When people are dying left and right, one doesn’t want to appear flip. Then again, gloom isn’t good, either. People visiting your site want to be entertained. Then there’s the food question. Thank…
Fava Beans and Peas with Creme Fraiche
This was one of those recipes I never planned to blog. But then I made it, and we agreed it was fantastic, so I jotted down what I’d done on my grocery list (yes, a paper list). You know how this story ends, right? Sure, I could excuse my foolishness…
Green Beans with Mushrooms
Green beans with mushrooms is an easygoing, undemanding dish. Anyone searching for dazzling summertime fare is advised to look elsewhere. I mean, I suppose one could fancy things up with expensive mushrooms or cold-pressed olive oil, but that would lose the point, which is simplicity. Nobody needs some fancypants dish…
