1,497 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

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.

11 K

Keywords for this post:Beans Early vegetables Green vegetables Pods

Last modified on: June 4^th 2022

For this post: Comment Follow 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

Should potatoes be washed twice?

Let's say you have to make a recipe that includes potatoes, let's say sliced, you'll most likely proceed as follows: Peel the potatoes, wash them, slice them, wash them again, pat them dry and add them to your recipe. But there's a "but": depending on the recipe, the second washing may be a bad...
May 19^th 20251,209 15

Grilled bacon is much better in the oven

Some recipes call for thin slices of bacon to be cooked and added to the recipe, or to prepare one of those delicious breakfasts known as "à l'Anglaise".
April 25^th 20251,5985

The thermometer is your friend

There are many recipes or foods that require a (very) precise cooking temperature: foie gras, sugar for caramel, meats and fish, and not forgetting pastries. For these few examples, getting the cooking temperature wrong can spoil the whole recipe or dish: undercooked, it's no good or misses the...
April 10^th 20251,8805

Travel cakes

You may have come across the term "travel cakes" ("gateaux de voyage" in french) for certain pastries, so let's take a look at what they're all about.
January 27^th 20253,364

The aromatic power of sugar

In the kitchen, sugar doesn't just sweeten, it also has an exceptional ability to capture flavors. Combined with aromatic ingredients, such as citrus zest, it acts as a veritable sponge for aromas. By taking the time to let the sugar soak up the flavors, you can transform your desserts, making...
December 25^th 20243,8235

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

The baker always gild twice

I've already told you about gilding, the beaten whole egg that is spread with a brush on anything that needs to brown in the oven: puff pastry, pastries, etc. and that professionals use a lot, I'm going to come back to this to clarify a bit how to do it, and give you a professional tip.
June 9^th 201932 K4.2

How to avoid lumps

You've probably come across this unpleasant phenomenon where, when you try to incorporate an ingredient (usually a solid or powder) into a preparation (usually a liquid), the mixture doesn't mix properly and you end up with little "balls" or little lumps of the solid part that refuse to mix with the...
October 9^th 202018 K4.8

What happens to the bread when you make it?

This bread that we eat every day, and that our baker makes for us, what happens during its manufacture so that it becomes bread? I will try to answer this question, and to summarize the complex alchemy that takes place.
May 28^th 202111 K4.9

The salad spinner is not only for salad

Where we see that the salad spinner can be used for many other purposes.
March 25^th 20228,7004.8

How to properly roll out a pie crust?

Very often in pastry making, you have to roll out a pastry before using it for a pie or another dessert. At home, of course, you get out your rolling pin and simply roll it out. Is there a way to get an evenly rolled out dough? That's what we will see in this article.
May 10^th 20237,1024.9