Sun, Oct-14-07, 05:20
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Senior Member
Posts: 1,146
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Plan: Modified Paleo Atkins
Stats: 260/260/190
BF:Getting/Much/Bette
Progress: 0%
Location: Durham, North Carolina
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Armenian Green beans
Armenian Green beans is a variation on a dish found all over the eastern Mediterranean. Usually served with rice, I like to just make it thicker and eat it like a stew.
2 lbs. ground meat. (lamb is best, but beef also works. If using bison, use extra fat to brown, like some lard.)
1 onion roughly chopped
1 green pepper roughly chopped
1 large can whole tomatoes
1 regular can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 lbs. haricort verte (or french cut green beans, or green beans you slice in half long-ways)
salt, pepper and lots of paprika
Brown the meat and when it's close to being cooked, add the onion and green pepper. Cook on medium heat for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt, pepper and about 2-3 tablespoons of paprika. The secret is lots of paprika. Stir and cook for another minute or two. Add the tomatoes, breaking the whole tomatoes up with your hands as you add them. (be careful, they will squirt!) Stir well and let cook for another 10 minutes. Add the green beans. If the beans are frozen (Whole foods sells great frozen haricort verte) let it come back to a simmer and then cook for another 10 minutes. If the beans are fresh, then cook for at least another 15 minutes.
There are two basic schools with this dish. One likes the beans to still be crunchy and green, the other likes to cook it a long time until the means are softer and slightly mushy. Both are good. My wife, the Armenian, likes them crunchier so that's how I usually cook it. As a stew, though, I think it works better with a longer cooking time and mushier beans. You can also use whole meat (stew meat). If you do, then definitely cook it longer to braise the meat.
For those who don't want the texture of the tomato chunks, then use a big can of crushed tomatoes and a small can of tomato puree.
After cooking it for the minimum times I mentioned above, taste the dish and salt appropriately. The green beans will absorb a fair amount of salt, so depending upon your taste, it may well need more. Try it and see. You can also make a spicy version of this by adding cayenne in addition to the paprika, but don't skip the paprika.
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