Leslie Karst
is the author of the culinary mystery, Dying for a Taste, the first of
the Sally Solari Mystery series. A former research and appellate attorney with
a degree in culinary arts, Leslie now spends her days cooking, gardening,
reading, cycling, singing alto in the local community chorus, and of course
writing. Learn more about Leslie at her website.
Italian String Bean Salad with Feta and Tomatoes
Serves 6
My protagonist, Sally
Solari, is a fourth-generation Italian, and her family owns an old-style
Italian restaurant out on the wharf in Santa Cruz, California. So this
recipe—which features Italian string beans and has the same colors as the
Italian flag—seemed appropriate to share with you today.
The dish is quick and easy,
can be prepared in advance, and is attractive and truly scrumptious. As a
result, it makes for a terrific first course for a dinner party. (If you can’t
find Italian beans—also known as Romano or flat beans—any kind of green beans,
or even asparagus, can be substituted.)
Ingredients:
8 oz. feta cheese
1 pint (1 lb.) cherry or
grape tomatoes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive
oil
salt and black pepper
1 lb. Italian string beans
Make
the topping first, so it can sit for a
few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Cut the feta cheese into small cubes.
Then slice the tomatoes into wedges. (You can use any variety, but cherry or
grape tomatoes are nice and sweet, and their tiny wedges make for a lovely
presentation. If using a larger variety, chop the tomatoes into small chunks
rather than wedges.)
Mix the feta cheese and
tomatoes together in a bowl with the olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste
(go easy on the salt, as feta cheese is already quite salty). Set this mixture
aside on the counter, and stir it every half hour or so. After a couple hours
it will be well incorporated, and you can refrigerate it (but be sure to take
it out again a half hour before serving, as the oil can congeal in the fridge).
Next,
blanch the beans. If they have
strings, de-string them. Keep them whole. Get a large pot of salted water
boiling, and drop in the beans. Let them cook for just a few minutes (2-5,
depending on how many beans there are). You want them to still have a bit of
bite to them.
While they’re blanching, get
ready a colander and a pan of ice. Pour the pot of cooked beans into the
colander, and then dump the drained beans into the pan of ice, and add cold
water. Stir the beans around with your hands to cool them off as quickly as
possible (but be gentle, so you don’t break them). By stopping the cooking
right away like this, the beans will retain their bright green color.
Once cool, put the beans
back in the colander to drain (or you could lay them on a dish towel, instead).
When the beans are dry, toss them with olive oil and salt and pepper, and put
them in the fridge until time to serve.
To
plate up the salad, lay out the beans
lined up together. Then, after giving it one last stir, top the beans with the
feta/tomato dressing.
Una insalata deliziosa!
Dying
for a Taste
After losing her mother to
cancer, Sally Solari quits her job as an attorney to help her dad run his
old-style Italian eatery in Santa Cruz, California, but soon finds that
managing the front of the house is far from her dream job of running her own
kitchen.
Then her Aunt Letta is found
stabbed to death at Gauguin, Letta’s swank Polynesian-French restaurant, and
Sally is the only one who can keep the place afloat. When the Gauguin sous chef
is accused of the crime, however, Sally must delve into the unfamiliar world of
organic food, sustainable farming, and animal rights activists—not to mention a
few family secrets—to help clear his name and catch the true culprit before her
timer runs out.
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