Yellow and Green Beans with Almonds and Shallots

After a post dribbling about how much I love vegetable side dishes in my last post, I might as well follow it up with a simple favourite of mine. I serve this as a side dish with pretty much anything. In one of our dinner parties, I paired this with simple roast beef and roast vegetables.

Beans for 6 lucky people (to serve with a roast):

1. 200 g. green beans (get the nicest, freshest beans possible, of course), trimmed
2. 100 g. yellow beans, trimmed
3. 4 tbsp of whole, raw almonds, chopped in halves
4. 3 French shallots, thinly sliced
5. 1/2 lemon, juiced
6. 1 tsp olive oil + a bit more to drizzle
7. 1 tsp of butter
8. salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil on a frying pan and slowly fry the shallots until soft and slightly golden – this should take about 10 minutes. Add almonds and toss through for another few minutes until the almonds are nicely toasted.

Bring about a litre of water to boil. Add the beans and turn the heat down to simmer. Cook for 1 minute. Drain. Toss through the shallots and almonds mixture, butter, lemon juice, butter and salt and pepper.

That’s it! You’d think there’d be more for something so good.

Meanwhile, here are the food photos from the night:

The roast beef – one should never allow Josh to buy the meat. He keeps going to for the leanest cut. Lean roasts… pfft. See Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding post for the recipe.

And roast veggies: potatoes, carrots, parsnips, garlic, etc. etc. See Roast Pork, Roast Veggies and Apple Sauce post.

The fabulous April made dessert: chocolate fondant (self-saucing chocolate pudding) and home made vanilla ice cream. Off to her blog to read about her fabulous baking prowess. Shoo.

Josh would also like me to let you know that he did the photos for this post. As if it’s not obvious.

This time last year I made:Roast pork with roast vegetables and apple sauce