Palestinian Green Beans with Olive Oil – Fasolia Bi Zait
Yield
Yield: 4 Servings
Ingredients
2 Tbsp olive oil or other neutral oil
2 onions, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely sliced
¾ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground allspice
14 oz can of plum tomatoes
1 tsp sugar
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
12 oz green beans, trimmed
Extra virgin olive oil, for serving
Instructions
Cook the ground beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat until cooked through, breaking it apart as it cooks, before draining off any excess grease.
Add the lemongrass, shallot or onion, garlic, ginger, cumin, turmeric, and the chili pepper. Mix well and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the lime, fish sauce, and sugar, mix well, taste and adjust the seasoning to taste.
Mix in the cilantro, mint, and basil. Serve over rice, noodles, in sandwiches, lettuce wraps, quesadillas, tacos, etc.
Notes
Recipe borrowed from Yasmin Kahn’s book,Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen.
Note from Andrea: When I made this recipe, I used one bunch of scallions (greens and onion base) in place of the 2 onions called for in the recipe. If you receive garlic scapes instead of fresh garlic this week, you can substitute 3-5 scapes, finely chopped, for the cloves of garlic called for in the recipe. In other similar recipes, the beans are cooked in a tomato mixture instead of being par cooked on the side and then finished in the tomato sauce. I decided to try a shortcut and cook the beans in the same pan instead of boiling them on the side. They required a little longer cooking time in the tomato sauce to become tender and I had to add a little additional liquid to the pan. When they were about al dente and almost cooked through, I removed the cover from the pan and reduced the liquid down until the tomato sauce portion was a little thicker. Did this shortcut save any time? Well, it saved me the time for having to wash one additional pan, but overall time was probably the same!
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