Nigel Slater, TV cook, bestselling cookery author and food columnist for The Observer, has joined the RHS grow your own campaign.
In this new series for 2009, Nigel focuses on the best produce for growing and cooking
Next month: Herbs
Nigel's runner bean recipes
Discover Nigel's runner bean recipes:
Runner beans
Some vegetables need little or no embellishment by the time they reach the dinner table. Nigel finds that runner beans are one such example where his ‘keep things simple’ motto could not be more relevant.
Runner beans belong to the snap-and-sniff section of my garden – those plants, fruits and vegetables whose scent I find irresistible, a smell of deepest summer, at once fresh and cool. Deeply inhaling the broken pod of a runner bean picked from its climbing frame takes me back to being 11 years old, and sitting among the acres of poles of our neighbour’s farm, picking beans for tea. Other scents that trigger the nostalgia button in me are begonias that smell of my father’s greenhouse, and wild garlic that takes me back to walks in the woods of my childhood home in Worcestershire.
A backbone of beans
I find the idea of a vegetable patch without runner beans as unthinkable as a garden without roses. It wouldn’t be summer without a wigwam of ‘Scarlet Emperor’ or bicoloured ‘Painted Lady’ flowers. It goes without saying that I grow them for the long, elegant pods and the mottled pink beans within, but I do love the flowers too – from the bright red of last year’s ‘Polestar’ to the pale ivory of ‘White Lady’. Indeed, that is why they were first planted when they arrived here from Mexico in the 17th century, long before we started to eat them as a vegetable. Runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) originated from the mountains of central America and are technically perennial, but grown as an annual in the UK. As a floral statement, few other productive plants can give such a colourful display.
I make quite a fuss about sowing the seeds properly – as well as I can – as the plants do seem healthier for it. A square of soil under the climbing frame is dug out, then the hollow filled with well-rotted manure and a layer of wet newspaper, before returning the displaced soil on top. It does seem like ‘fusspot gardening’, but I have done it for years and it keeps the roots happy throughout summer, giving the young plants a head start. Most of my seeds are in their pots in my cold frame by the second week of April, but I often sow another batch in May to carry me through to the first frosts in October or November. Though thirsty when young, the bean patch soon becomes one of the most trouble-free areas of my vegetable garden.
There is always a temptation to leave them to grow as long as they can, especially the really lengthy cultivars such as ‘Enorma’, whose pods grow to 32cm (13in), but picking them every two or three days will ensure that you enjoy the beans at their most tender. The strings that run along the edges of older beans only really start to become a problem once the bean is past its best. That said, stringing is a kitchen job I find rather pleasing, especially if I am sitting on the back step in the early evening sun. It is a summer task that I never seem to tire of; and reminds me of the simple yet endless pleasure to be gained from working with produce that you have brought into this world and (thankfully) have been able to establish and then grow on.
Subtle flavours
In the kitchen, runner beans and their mild flavour respond better to simple treatment than any complex recipe. This is not a vegetable to throw in with many other ingredients; it can lose its point in a mixed vegetable soup or main course. Some of what we grow in our gardens needs to be eaten with as little embellishment as possible, and runner beans are among them.
A pan of deep, furiously boiling water is the best cooking medium for a freshly picked bean, giving it room to roll around in the water, though I sometimes steam mine over boiling water. Though a pat of softening butter before they reach the table is the traditional accompaniment and a difficult one to beat, I have occasionally used a little melted bacon fat to moisten them and even scattered them with bits of crispy fried streaky before now. They respond well to the salty nature of the bacon.
‘Keep things simple’ has always been my kitchen motto, but never more so than with runner beans. They are not good to eat raw in quantity – they are poisonous as they contain the toxin phytohaemagglutinin – but a few, very finely sliced and given a brief dip in boiling water, make an interesting alternative to the classic round climbing beans in a salade niçoise. I also often toss them in a little melted butter with some grated lemon zest as an original accompaniment to anything fishy. A simple treatment for a subtly flavoured vegetable.