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Salt-and-Vinegar String Beans
6
servings
Side Dish
Course
Print Recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Ingredients
1 ½ lb
fresh beans (such as green or yellow Romanos, wax beans, or green beans), trimmed
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Grapeseed oil
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3 tbsp
malt vinegar
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4 tbsp
malt vinegar powder, plus more for dusting
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3 tbsp
extra-virgin olive oil
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Flaky sea salt
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This recipe has been excerpted from the Superiority Burger Cookbook.

Amazon.com is a bummer. We can all agree on this. They have made a career flattening the little, mighty, important mom-and-pop bookstores out of business. In New York city alone: St. Mark’s Bookshop, Oscar Wilde Bookshop, Murder Ink, for example, all vanished. You can buy anything on Amazon. Compact discs, slacks, fetish hot sauces—you name it, they will sell it to you. We want this warm salad to taste as gripping and succulent as a paper cone of boardwalk fries minus the airborne fryer oil and fingered tubers. The key is powdered malt vinegar, which can be difficult to source. Amazon has it. But order it from a tiny online spice emporium instead; you might not get it in 48 hours, but we will all feel better about this commercial exchange.

Directions

  1. Bring a heavily salted pot of water to a boil. Set up an ice bath. Gently drop the beans into the water and let boil for only 20 seconds or so. Immediately plunge them into the ice bath. Once they are cool, drain the beans well and dry with a clean kitchen towel.
  2. In a large skillet, bring a little bit of grapeseed oil to almost smoking over high heat. Drop the beans into the skillet and move them around continuously so they get a nice sear on both sides. Transfer the beans into a large mixing bowl. Add the malt vinegar, malt vinegar powder, olive oil, and a lot of salt and pepper. The seasoning should remind you of boardwalk French fries. Top each serving with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt and a dusting of more malt vinegar powder. Eat with your fingers.