Frosted Green Beans with Sesame

Harsh bought me 'The Silver Spoon', which they say is the bible of authentic Italian cooking, for my birthday. The book has been very successfully sold in Italy and most Italian households have it on their bookshelves. A lot of Italian brides receive this book as a wedding gift.
I was very excited as i flipped through the 2000 plus recipes in the book as this meant months and months of experimenting in the kitchen. There are really simple recipes and some quite complicated ones as well, but they're all explained very simply. The only flip side is that there aren't too many pictures in the book and sometimes I find it hard to imagine what a dish would really look like. In fact, often it's the photograph that makes a dish tempting enough for me to try it out and lack of pictures can be a little intimidating.

This week I had 200 gms of green beans that I'd plucked off the bush beans I'd grown in our balcony and I thought it would be a great idea to try something Italian with them. More often that not, Italian cuisine is limited to pizza, pasta and risotto, and I thought I'd use this opportunity to bring you a recipe that falls into none of these categories.

Read on for the recipe to make Fagiolini Glassati Al Sesamo or Frosted Green Beans with Sesame.

Ingredients:


Green Beans (or French Beans) - 200 gms
Finely sliced Spring Onion - 1
Lemon juice - 1 tsp
Grated rind of a lemon - 1/4 tsp
Sesame seeds - 1 tsp
A blob of butter
Olive oil - for drizzling
Salt - to taste
Pepper - to taste

Method:


Cook the beans in salted boiling water for ten minutes, then drain and set aside.
Melt a blob of butter in a pan and saute the spring onions over low heat until they're softened. Stir in the lemon juice, the rind, salt and pepper and stir to mix well.
Now, add the green beans, mix well and continue to cook for another 5-10 minutes. In a separate pan roast the sesame seeds for a couple of minutes until they're fragrant.
Transfer the beans to a serving dish, sprinkle with sesame seeds and drizzle with olive oil. Mix well and serve hot.