Green Beans with Toasted Sesame Dressing
Ever since my trip to Kyoto in November, I’ve been on this Japanese kick. Not just for dishes like sushi or tempura, but for their authentic, home-style fare. Words cannot describe how beautiful Kyoto is. In the meantime, I’ll just relive my trip through these green beans, also known as “ingen no goma-ae.” The dressing reminds me a bit of peanut butter. Odd combination, but it somehow works!
One word of warning…This recipe came from a book that has both Japanese and English. I think there were some things lost in translation, including how much green beans to use. I used about half a pound of green beans and tossed it with the dressing until it tasted like a good bean to dressing ratio.
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GREEN BEANS WITH SESAME DRESSING
Recipe from Recipes of Japanese Cooking by Yuko Fujita
3-1/2 oz green beans, chopped into bite-sized pieces. It’s about one handful. There is plenty of dressing — I’ve actually used a pound and it turned out fine.
Pinch salt
3 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp soy sauce (low sodium tasted better than regular)
1 Tbsp oil (I used something tasteless like canola)
1. Boil the green beans to desired tendernesss. Drain, pat dry, and set aside.
2. Combine the sugar, oil, and soy sauce. Set aside.
3. Toast sesame seeds in your toaster or over a pan. I’ve been putting the seeds in a non-stick pan over medium heat and watching it very closely. Once you start seeing smoke, really keep an eye on it so that they don’t burn. Grind sesame seeds into a paste — it’ll smell divine! You might need to use a mortar and pestle. Or you can pull out your good old suribachi, a Japanese sesame grinder. Me? I used my handy dandy hand blender.
4. Combine the soy sauce mixture into the sesame seed mixture and then combine with green beans. The dressing will have a texture of peanut butter so combining it might be a bit hard at first.
