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.
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