Chef's bean there and done that...
WHAT is very probably Britain's first cookery book devoted to runner beans has just hit the shelves.
It's by Simon Taylor, author of the Herb and Sex Diet, published two years ago, who was not tempted to call this one the Beans and Sex Diet!
"It started with an exceptional bean harvest and the tedium my family expressed for having steamed runner beans at every meal," laughs Simon.
So with beans coming out of his ears and not liking to see good vegetables go to waste, he set about finding and inventing recipes to use up the glut.
"I had to come up with interesting things," he says. You'll find them in the Runner Bean Cook Book, published today.
Simon, who by day is a community psychiatrist, says beans are good for you.
"They are a rich source of vitamin C, folic acid and fibre and at less than 20 calories per 100g there is much more we can do with them."
The book includes recipes for runner bean carbonara, pasta, risotto, gratin and much more.
He even turns runner beans into a topping for crostini.
Simon, aged 48, is a sort of Sheffield Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, if on a smaller scale.
He runs an allotment as well as a garden, grows grape vines in a polytunnel – "I produce a case of respectable Seyval Blanc each year" – grows hops for beer, makes elderflower champagne and turns his neighbour's apples into cider.
It's a wonder he hasn't come up with a recipe for runner bean wine.
Runner beans are an archetypal English vegetable. They do not grow very well in France. If this gives you the impetus to grow your own (there's just about time) he recommends Scarlet Emperor, painted Lady and Lady Di Stringless as the ones to plant.
The book has depended upon the forbearance of his wife Alison and two children, on whom he has tested the recipes.
One day Alison came home to be confronted by six runner bean salads he had prepared for her to taste. The two she liked are in the book.
The book costs 3.99 and is available on Amazon or from the Famous Sheffield Shop on Ecclesall Road,
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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