I guess I have a penchant for cooking things that are difficult to pronounce. Green beans are becoming quite abundant, and tomatoes are starting to come in. What’s that mean?
Fasolakia!!
Go ahead, spend a minute trying to figure out how to pronounce it. I’ll wait. Meanwhile, I'm going to dig deep into the nightmares of pledge semester and see if I can write that with the Greek alphabet. Hmm... Φασολακια Is that right?
It’s Greek stewed green beans. No crispy onion straws involved. Yay. Unfortunately no bacon either. Boo. This is the sort of dish that it’s easy to get going, then leave on the stove for forever to cook. Without further delay…
Ingredients
1 1/2 to 2 lbs. green beans, ends snapped off, washed
1 medium onion, quartered and thinly sliced
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups diced fresh tomatoes
1 cup water
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley, oregano, or a combination thereof
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice, more to taste
Salt & pepper
Directions
Gently heat olive oil over medium flame (not to smoking). Add onion and cook 3 to 4 minutes until translucent.
Add green beans, tomatoes, water, and herbs. Let simmer over low heat at least 30 minutes, but it’s okay to leave it a lot longer than that. (I’ve had no problem with it cooking for 2 hours.) Stir occasionally.
Remove the lid and bring flame to medium, let reduce 10 minutes. You still want the beans in liquid, but it shouldn’t look like soup. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.
That’s a pretty easy one, but the flavors are amazing. I like making this when I’ve got a number of other things to cook, and I can just let it go while I’m busy elsewhere.
Any other ethnic dishes out there you can share with me?
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