Rachel's recipes: Full of Beans - Walnut & Parsley Pesto & 'Fasole Verde' pasta, Salade Nicoise

Fasole Verde, Haricots Verts, String Beans or “French Beans”, whichever name is used, are sweet and delicious. I wasn’t ever very keen on harvesting or doing much at all in the heyday of my Mum’s happy hippy 1970s garden but I did like picking the “French Beans” and then helping cook them and eating them with some melted butter, or (my favorite) slightly warm with vinaigrette.

Fast forward to Piata Matache and the mountains of green and yellow beans on offer now. Green Beans as well as being delicious and versatile come with an array of health benefits so eating them chalks up a number of “good eating” brownie points. Lots of vitamin C and various B vitamins make the humble bean a strong immune system booster. The legume is high in fiber too and low in carbs and adorned with a vitamin E rich tahini or walnut sauce preferably with generous amounts of garlic involved packs a mean antioxidant punch, so chuck away the echinacea and tuck into beans instead! First stop to enhance the bean experience this week was to make a “Walnut and Parsley Pesto”. I first encountered this simple but sensational pesto on the Turkish Aegean where the local olive oil is prized. Note: for a more walnutty flavor use walnut oil 1/3 to olive oil 2/3. Take blitzing equipment of choice and throw in one bulb of garlic ( yes one whole bulb of raw garlic and forget your neighbors and colleagues…think of your fast reducing cholesterol level or make them eat it too ) , two bunches of parsley, two full handfuls of walnuts, 100g-ish of parmesan or aged pecorino, a little chilli, the zest of half a lemon and enough olive oil to make it bind into a loose paste (probably more than would initially be thought), some salt and pepper to taste. Whizz it all up and hey presto, pesto fit for kings. This quantity makes two smallish jars. One jar will coat enough pasta for 4.

Walnut and Parsley Pesto & “Fasole” pasta

For four: Boil 500g of topped and tailed green and yellow beans and leave to cool. Chop roughly. Boil pasta according to instructions and personal taste Add the Walnut and Parsley pesto to the cooked pasta and mix through. Add the beans gently and stir through Serve with parmesan and a glass of something (or somebody) that copes with the garlic. Richard Fox recommends either the Prince Stirbey Tamaioasa Romaneasca Sec 2011 or the Davino Ceptura Rose 2011.