1,577 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 77 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

Beans in primeur

As I write this, it is the beginning of the short season for fresh beans. If you've never made them before and you're just starting out (and that's a great idea) you'll find that it's a bit time consuming to prepare, you have to shell them once, remove the beans, scald them to remove the skin (and the germ for the purists) and then only use them in a recipe.

It's hard work, but it's delicious...

This being said, there is a little known aspect about beans, they are the so-called "primeur" or "en primeur" beans, which are prepared in a very different and much faster way.

15 K

Keywords for this post:Beans Early vegetables Green vegetables Pods

Last modified on: June 4^th 2022

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Beans in primeur

In early season?

This is said of beans at the very beginning of the season, when they are still small, 8-10 cm maximum, and very tender.
If you find some of this size, you often have to ask the farmer, it's quite surprising but you should know that everything is eaten in the beans at this time, the beans of course (not very big at this age), but also the pod that contains them.

How to do it ?

The trick is to work them a bit like green beans:

fèves entières
1) We break the 2 ends of the terminal by pulling to remove any wires, but there are very few in general.

fèves lavées et séchées
2) We wash and dry them.

fèves taillées
3) We cut them in small pieces, to your taste.

fèves en cuisson
4) We cook these small pieces as you are used to with other green vegetables, I like to cook them first in English (boiling salted water 3-4 minutes) and then cooled and drained, returned with a knob of butter or a little olive oil.

You will be surprised by the taste, something between snap beans and peas it seems, and the texture, very soft.

Don't hesitate to mix these beans with other vegetables for a varied and colorful dish.

To sum up: You can enjoy early beans, at the beginning of the season, by treating them a bit like green beans, which allows you to eat the whole pod, it is both delicious and very economical.

Lasts posts

Cut twice as fast

When you need to cut something long into small pieces, for example chopped chives or the stem of a spring onion, there's a simple gesture that doubles your cutting speed. Let's see how.
May 21^th 2026985

The other use for bowl scraper

Your kitchen or bakery utensils may include a horn (left) or a pastry cutter (right). These practical utensils are normally used to scoop the contents of a bowl or salad bowl - the horn - or to cut dough - the pastry cutter. But they also have another, very practical use - let's see what it is.
May 9^th 20261,286

The strange foam of potatoes in milk

As you may have already noticed, when you cook potatoes in milk, especially in small pieces (slices or cubes) for a gratin for example, a surprisingly abundant white foam forms on the surface. Where does it come from?
April 26^th 20261,516

A little leftover butter

Very often when you're making a cake, your recipe will tell you to melt some butter and mix it into the batter - a classic for cookies, cakes, moelleux and the like. And every time you do this, you'll have to butter the baking tin to prevent the dough from sticking during baking. Naturally,...
April 16^th 20261,3955

A tablet holder

Perhaps you too cook by consulting your recipe on a tablet or phone, and putting it down on your worktop? It's practical, but not the best solution. Here's a look at how you can make an inexpensive, almost universal stand.
March 14^th 20262,1065

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Perpetual stock

It's something you have probably have done yourself: cooked or pre-cooked vegetables before adding them to a recipe. This is almost always done the same way: peel the chosen vegetables (carrots, for example), cut them up, boil them in salted water (using a tablespoon or so of coarse salt per litre),...
November 22^th 201633 K5

The ideal restaurant

Like all passionate cooks (I suppose), from time to time I dream of opening my own restaurant. I imagine loads of things: it will be like this or like that, we'll do this, I'll cook that, the room will have this or that – in short, I dream.
October 15^th 201217 K4.4

Fruits which can ruin your jelly

There are many ways of making a fruit mousse, but one of the simplest is to prepare a fruit jelly (basically a fresh fruit coulis with gelatine) and then mix this jelly before it sets completely with whipped cream. The result is perfect for filling a charlotte, for example. But do beware;...
March 6^th 201380 K4.0

Salt and yeast

Let's take a look at an old baker's legend: You may have already read that somewhere in a recipe that uses baker's yeast(bread, pastries, leavened doughs in general) it is often specified "Don't put salt in contact with the yeast, you'll kill it (the yeast)"! Well, that's a belief, and there are...
March 15^th 201975 K4.3

Baking cakes

Where we see that to put a cake in the oven, once the dough is finished and in its mould, there is no hurry and that the cold is your friend.
June 28^th 201947 K4.1