Jamie Oliver’s Best Ever Green Beans

I have a fairly extensive cookbook collection. Now, in this day and age of The Google and a billion different food related websites, cookbooks might seem a bit out of place. And while I do get a lot of my recipes and food ideas online, there is still something nice about having a cookbook in your hand that you ar familiar with, that you know won’t fail you at the last minute or for a big event. Most of my cookbooks have been stolen acquired from Mama CC, but since I received my first cookbook for my 4th birthday, growing my own collection was inevitable. A couple months ago I bought Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook. I was immediately smitten with it. I have most of his older cookbooks and figured I might as well round out the collection. I got it used on Amazon for about 8 bucks (if you are buying cookbooks brand new, you are just being silly… wait a month or two, read the reviews, see if it’s any good and buy it used for, like, a tenth of the price).

These green beans are amazing. Green beans are probably my favorite green vegetable, so throw in some parmesan and garlic and it’s basically the perfect trifecta for a side dish in my book.

Be sure to let the sliced garlic get nice and golden and crispy. Totally makes the dish all the more amazing.

One thing to note: every single time I have made this recipe I have forgotten to ‘reserve some of the cooking water’. Super annoying, but I have made do with a bit more lemon juice (I love lemon, so I don’t have a problem with a bit of extra tang) or by adding in some vegetable broth instead.

Best Ever Green Beans (from Jamie’s Food Revolution, p. 222)

Serves 4-6

• 1 1/4 pounds of green beans
• pinch of Kosher salt
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese, finely grated
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 of a lemon

1. Line up the green beans on a chopping board and cut off the stalks.
2. Put the beans in a sauce pan of boiling water with a dash of salt and cook for about six minutes. Drain, reserving some of the cooking water, and set them aside to steam dry.
3. Put the pan back on the heat, add the oil and the garlic. Stir. When the garlic starts to turn golden, add the beans and shake them around in the pan to coat them in the garlic oil.
4. Add a small ladleful of the reserved cooking water, the parmesan cheese, and the lemon juice. Stir and simmer until the water and cheese start to form an oozy, sticky sauce. Remove from the heat and serve immediately.