Green bean, almond and peach salad recipe
Thomas Straker's fresh dish is summer in a bowl

This dish is summer in a bowl, says Thomas Straker. Take your time to split the beans and carefully select perfectly ripe peaches, as this will yield juiciness beyond belief. My favourite variety is a flat white peach.
Ingredients (serves four as a side dish or starter)
- 120g flaked almonds
- 500g extra-fine green beans, trimmed
- leaves from a 30g bunch of mint
- 3 ripe peaches (total weight about 225g), thinly sliced
- For the dressing:
- 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more (optional) to serve
- 3 tbsp Chardonnay vinegar
- 3 tbsp honey
- 2 pinches Aleppo chilli flakes, or regular chilli flakes
- 2 pinches of sea salt flakes
Method
- Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan. Spread the flaked almonds on a baking tray and cook for 8-10 minutes until golden brown, giving them a shake halfway through to ensure they colour evenly.
- Meanwhile, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and blanch the green beans for 3-4 minutes, until they're soft enough that they can be split in half down the middle.
- Refresh the beans in a bowl of iced water (or in a bowl under a tap of cold running water), and move them around with your hand to ensure the heat disperses into the water evenly. Do this for just 30 seconds, because you don't want the beans to retain any extra water. Drain them and pat dry with kitchen paper.
- Halve the green beans lengthways and put them in a large bowl. Tear in the mint and add the sliced peaches and toasted almonds.
- In a separate bowl, mix the oil, vinegar, honey, chilli flakes and sea salt flakes until emulsified, then add to the salad and toss together. Season to taste and serve piled onto a plate with any extra dressing, or another drizzle of olive oil.
Taken from "Food You Want to Eat" by Thomas Straker, published by Bloomsbury. Photography by Issy Croker.
Sign up for The Week's Food & Drink newsletter for recipes, reviews and recommendations.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'A symbol of the faceless corporate desire'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Say farewell to summer at these underrated US lakes
The Week Recommends Have one last blast
-
Truck drivers are questioning the Trump administration's English mandate
Talking Points Some have praised the rules, others are concerned they could lead to profiling
-
Twelfth Night or What You Will: a 'riotous' late-summer jamboree
The Week Recommends Robin Belfield's 'carnivalesque' new staging at Shakespeare's Globe is 'joyfully tongue-in-cheek'
-
Hostage: Netflix's 'fun, fast and brash potboiler'
The Week Recommends Suranne Jones is 'relentlessly defiant' as prime minister Abigail Dalton
-
Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly Tuttle
Feature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
-
Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!
Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town
-
Critics' choice: Three chefs fulfilling their ambitions
Feature Kwame Onwuachi's grand second act, Travis Lett makes a comeback, and Jeff Watson's new Korean restaurant
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of "Born to Run"'
Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
Keith McNally's 6 favorite books that have ambitious characters
Feature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
'Mankeeping': Why women are fed up
Feature Women no longer want to take on the full emotional and social needs of their partners