Seriously, my girlfriend and I bought a little container of these at the farmers market for $4.00 or so and fell in love with them. I see there’s a few recipes online for them, but most of the recipes seem to be replicating battered and fried green beans from TGIFs that are heavily spiced with pepper and cajun seasoning. What we had was pretty far away from that. What we ate was as crunchy as a pretzel stick, was not battered, looked as though it had been fried but was not browned, and was lightly dusted with salt. The fries were also sweet, though I don’t know if that’s because they had been sprinkled with sugar, or if the sweetness came from the oil or the beans themselves. My girlfriend supposes that they were fried in canola oil.
Does anyone know how we can make these ourselves? Whole Foods serves an arm and a leg for their bags of misc. fried vegetables and we only get to go out to the farmer’s market one every now and then. I would love to introduce these to my sister too :D.
You can roast them. It’s like eating green bean candy–my kids eat them right off the roasting pan. The roasting brings out the sugars and carmelizes them. Less oil too.
I got this recipe from Cooks Illustrated:
An aluminum foil liner prevents burning on dark nonstick baking sheets. When using baking sheets with a light finish, foil is not required, but we recommend it for easy cleanup.
Ingredients
1 pound green beans , stem ends snapped off
1 tablespoon olive oil
Table salt and ground black pepper
Instructions
Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 450 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil; spread beans on baking sheet. Drizzle with oil; using hands, toss to coat evenly. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt, toss to coat, and distribute in even layer. Roast 10 minutes.
Remove baking sheet from oven. Using tongs, redistribute beans. Continue roasting until beans are dark golden brown in spots and have started to shrivel, 10 to 12 minutes longer.
Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper, transfer to serving bowl, and serve.
You can put all kinds of flavorings on them. We just use salt and we don’t bother transferring them to a bowl–wastes time. They’re not quite as crispy as pretzel sticks, but they are crisp, sweet and salty. Very easy to make.
Nooo, that’s not it. The green beans actually came out less cripsy than they were when they went in. Right now they’re just just limp and oily. They were a bit cripsy out on outside, but as a whole they weren’t very crunchy :(.
tries something else
Gah! And frying them in a pan with a boat load of oil doesn’t to it either.
You don’t need special equipment to deep fry. Just a pot and a lot of oil. And a thermometer if you need it. (Although I suspect Pyper may be onto something with the freeze-dried green beans.)
They’re not quite as crispy as pretzel sticks, but they are crisp, sweet and salty. Very easy to make.