The thing that has surprised me most with this year’s first steps in growing vegetables has been just how many beans you get from a few plants tucked in amongst the flowers. First to crop were the dwarf beans, then the runner beans kicked in (and have been amazingly productive, even climbing over the fence into next door’s garden and supplying our lovely neighbour with a few beans). We thought our french beans were a failure, but in fact they were just later coming into production than everything else, and are now also cropping well.
So having tamed our tomatoes, the beans had to have my attention next. I searched the internet but almost every recipe I came up with was basically the same rather dull-looking old WI recipe, trotted out under different names but all apparently designed to produce a thin, mustardy, vinegary ‘piccalilli’-style of preserve, which wasn’t what I wanted.
So I decided to create my own, almost ‘sweet & sour’ French Bean & Tomato Relish. It’s a softer set than the chutney I was making, and I feel that it makes the most of the beans themselves and will be a great accompaniment to British cheeses or cold meats.
David’s French Bean & Tomato Relish
1kg french beans, topped, tailed and cut into 2.5cm pieces
1.3kg red tomatoes, quartered
2 medium onions (400g unpeeled weight)
1 tsp salt
100g unpeeled weight fresh ginger root, finely chopped
8 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tsp ground white pepper
seeds of 15 cardamom pods
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp fenugreek seeds
3 dried red chillies
500ml white malt vinegar
575g soft dark or Demerara sugar
25g cornflour, slaked with a very little water
Chop the tomatoes and onions and put in a large heavy pan. Add everything but the beans, sugar and cornflour and stew for 1-1½ hours until much reduced. Meanwhile, drop the beans into boiling water and cook until just tender; drain, and throw into a large quantity of iced cold water, to halt the cooking. When quite cold, drain again. Add the sugar to the reduced tomato mixture and cook down for 20 minutes; add the beans, cook until hot, then spoon out 300ml of the cooking liquid; mix with the slaked cornflour, return to the pan, and cook for 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile, make sure your jam jars are washed and clean, and sterilise them by putting them in an oven at 140C for at least 10 minutes. Then fill your jars with the hot pickle and cover immediately. If you use acid- and vinegar-proof screw-top metal lids, the relish will retain its moisture content and remain quite soft, but if you use cellophane covers held in place with elastic bands, some of the moisture will gradually evaporate, giving you a denser pickle.
