22 September 2022

This time round on KCC, we’ve brought a recipe back from our heartland of the Datça peninsula that uses fresh almonds, lemons and olive oil to make an amandine dressing for green beans based on France’s classic almond sauce.

We had some great meze dishes on our travels around the peninsula including one made with fresh black-eyed beans – börülce in Turkish – and almonds at Ada Pansiyon on Ovabükü beach. Having failed to track down fresh black-eyed beans back in Almaty, we opted for green beans as they were available.

This dish can be served along other meze dishes – check out some of our other meze ideas here, or with bulgur, rice or pasta as more of a main course. The amandine dressing also works well with other vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower.

Ingredients 

• 500 g green beans
• 100 g red onion
• 100 g almonds
• 50 ml olive oil
• One lemon
• One teaspoon chilli flakes

Method

• Peel the almonds – put them in hot water for 30 seconds and then into cold water, the skins should now be easy to remove. Break the almonds into small chunks and toast in a frying pan over a low heat until they go a golden brown colour. Remove from the pan and set aside.
• Top and tail the green beans and slice into 5 cm lengths. Heat the oil in the frying pan and then fry the chopped onion for five minutes and then add the beans and stir fry over a medium heat for five minutes or so – they should retain a little bit of crunch. While the beans are cooking, zest the lemon and then squeeze the juice.
• Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, including the lemon juice and chilli flakes and serve straight away or allow to cool if you prefer.