Vietnamese fish sauce adds a subtle unifying umami hit to the crisp green beans and sweet apricots in this colorful, seasonal side dish. Recipe below.
We don’t do enough side dishes here. Unfortunately, we only tend to think of this when we actually post one. So when this recipe showed up in a recent Food & Wine email, we made it pretty much the same day—of course with our own variations.
It was an instant hit. And what’s not to like? The fish sauce imposes a wonderful harmony on the snappy green beans and the ripe fruit. The dish looks beautiful and it’s a great celebration of the flavors of this time of year. And the whole thing comes together in ten minutes.
As apricot season winds down, you’ll still find some nice ones in the market. For this recipe, we used red apricots, which are a little sweeter and richer tasting than regular orange apricots. Black apricots, which are even more intense, would also work well in this recipe. And if you can’t find apricots at all, red plums will work just fine.
Charred Green Beans with Apricots
Serves 3 to 4 (adapted from Food & Wine)
3 or 4 ripe fresh apricots—red, black or orange, halved, pitted, then each half sliced into 3 wedges
2 tablespoons canola oil
3/4 pound green beans, trimmed (see Kitchen Notes)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons Vietnamese fish sauce
2 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces, then julienned—they should start to curl when you slice them lengthwise
freshly ground black pepper
First, prepare the apricots and put them in a medium bowl. (Apricots should be room temperature. They will not be cooked—the only warmth for this dish will come from the green beans.)
In a large nonstick skillet or a well-seasoned wok, heat the oil over medium-high flame until it is good and hot, almost shimmering. Add the green beans, toss them in the oil and leave them alone until they start to brown and blister—at least 3 minutes. They should be blackened on one side and bright green on the other.
Pour the blackened beans into the bowl with the sliced fruit. Add the lime juice and fish sauce, stir, grind black pepper over everything, then, at the last, add the scallions and stir again. That’s it. It’s ready to serve.
Kitchen Notes
Picking green beans. Choose green beans that are firm and bright green and nice looking, and also that are uniform in size. For this dish, you also want green beans that are slightly smaller and slender, so they will be sufficiently cooked in just a few minutes.
Apricot season (all 3 days of it!) has passed here – thanks for the plum suggestion; those are at the farmers’ market now!
Wonderful recipe! Can you use Haricot vert?
Anita, err slightly on the firm ripe side with your plums—too ripe and they might just fall apart on you.
Haricots verts will be perfect for this! Nice and slim and tender.
I get frozen hericot verts that are, I think, possibly fresher than what I could get in the produce section. Just putting together my grocery list tonight so will be adding apricots. This sounds scrumptious, Terry!
Thanks, Dani!
Seduction, yes, absolutely!
gah!!! these look incredible!
They are, if I say so myself. And they are so simple, too.
Mmm!
I was given some lovely green beans, and was looking for something to do with them…
I had dried apricots on hand; I used a couple of the really squishy ones. I threw in some pistachios to make it more substantial, and tossed with some asian noodles.
Excellent meal!
Eeka, we love when people hack our recipes and make them their own! And we also love when faithful readers like you dig into the archives—we’ve been doing this for going on 11 years now, and we honestly have forgotten so many things we’ve cooked here.