Helpful Hints In The Kitchen

Green Bean Salad

With summer approaching, green bean salad is a very popular menu item. Sometimes during or after the preparation process, the beans lose their vibrant color and crisp texture. Here is a simple hint to prevent that from happening. We recommend blanching the beans by dunking them in boiling water and then shocking them in a bowl of ice water to set their color and preserve their crisp texture. We generally place a fine-mesh strainer in a bowl filled with ice water and dump the hot vegetables into it. When the vegetables are cool, the strainer can be lifted out, leaving the ice behind.