OFF THE SHELF
Snap beans will stay crisp if you avoid overcooking

By Jeanne McManus
Washington Post

A brief plunge into boiling, salted water is all that most snap beans require. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

String beans got their name from the tough, inedible filaments that ran down their spines and had to be zipped off. But modern hybrids are mostly without them. Snap beans got their name because a good, crisp one can be broken into serving-size portions with a simple snap. Which brings us to:

If a snap bean doesn't snap in half but bends instead, walk on by. You are looking for brightly colored specimens, without brown spots and, in general, the thinner they are, the sweeter. If you can see bumps from seeds inside bursting through the pod, don't buy them. If you split open a bean, the seeds should be small and tender. "Avoid really thick beans that are swollen with seeds, which will be mealy and bland," advises Jack Bishop in "Vegetables Every Day" (HarperCollins, 2001). If you have to store them, do so in a loosely closed plastic bag in the crisper of your refrigerator, away from moisture.

If the ends are tough, cut them off with a paring knife or scissors. Green beans are easy to prepare and equally easy to mess up. If you let them cook too long, they lose their brilliant color and their crisp texture.

Many cooks prefer to boil green beans quickly in salted water. "Having microwaved, steamed, simmered and boiled snap beans, I vote for the last," writes Elizabeth Schneider in "Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini" (William Morrow, 2001), praising the uniform texture, slight crunch and fresh flavors of briefly boiled beans. Once the beans are trimmed, she drops them in a large pot of boiling, salted water. After 1 1/2 minutes she begins checking for doneness and then drains them when "they're a tad less done than you like them." She tosses them with butter, lemon juice and salt and pepper.