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When green beans met apricots: A late-spring romance

Recipe: Vegetable/fruit salad blends textures and flavors

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED JUN 14, 2020

How fresh is this? Green beans play well with apricots. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Salads this time of year should celebrate the best produce in season. Today's recipe selects a fruit and a vegetable from the top of the current produce charts and combines them beautifully.

To make this salad work, find the skinniest fresh green beans (or French "haricots verts") and some ripe but not yet soft apricots. The other produce ingredients -- green grapes, a green apple -- aren't in season locally but can be found in stores. Or make substitutions: You want something sweet and soft, such as a white-flesh melon, and something crunchy, such as very thinly sliced jicama or celery.

The deli ham adds a touch of salty fat to the mix; if you don't eat ham, try small cubes of soft cheese (dairy or vegan) to get the same effect.

The recipe is adapted from food52.com , which in turn adapted it from Jaleo, a wonderful Spanish restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Gorgeous fresh produce, ready for salad preparation.

Green Beans With Fresh Apricots

Serve 4

Ingredients:

1/2 to 3/4 pound thin fresh green beans or haricots verts

3 fresh, ripe apricots

2 tablespoons sherry, dry preferred but any type will work

1/3 cup green table grapes, or 1/3 cup finely diced Santa Claus or Crenshaw melon

1/3 of a Granny Smith apple, skin on, or 1/3 cup very thinly sliced celery or diced jicama

3 slices deli ham or prosciutto (1.5 ounces)

1 tablespoon chives

1 tablespoon vinegar: sherry, champagne or white wine all work (but not apple cider vinegar)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

Wash the beans and remove the stem end, but not the tail end. Put a 4-quart or larger pot of salted water on to boil.

Wash and halve the apricots, removing the pits. Brush the cut sides of the apricots with a bit of olive oil, or spray with oil spray.

If you're already heating the outdoor grill for something else, place the apricots cut side down on the grill but for no more than about 1 minute, just to gently heat them. Alternatively, heat a grill pan or a nonstick skillet on the stove over medium-high heat and warm the apricot halves in the pan, cut side down, for about 1 minute. Remove the warmed halves to a bowl, cut side up, and pour 1 tablespoon of the sherry over the apricots. Set them aside to soak while the other ingredients are being prepared.

Thinly slice the grapes. Dice the apple and the ham slices.

Add the green beans to the boiling water in the pot and cook until tender but still crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. (Check one to be sure.) Drain -- do NOT run under cold water -- and return the beans to the still-warm pot.

Sprinkle the grape slices, ham, apple and chives over the beans. Drain the sherry from the apricots into the pot, and add the remaining 1 tablespoon sherry, stirring to blend. Slice the drained apricot halves into 6 pieces each. Gently stir the apricot halves into the green bean mixture.

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar and olive oil with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the vinaigrette over the vegetables and stir to blend. Taste and adjust seasoning, then serve the salad warm or at room temperature.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipes spring produce apricots Sacramento cooking farmers markets green beans summer produce produce management salad farm to fork

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Garden checklist for week of April 19

After this midweek storm, start getting serious about spring gardening. Flowers are blooming about three weeks ahead of schedule. That includes weeds!

* Get ready to swing into action in the vegetable garden – if you haven’t already. As nights warm up over 50 degrees, set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, radishes and squash; wait on pumpkins until May. Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias. Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom. Late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.

* Smell orange blossoms? Give citrus trees a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants. If leaves look yellow, your tree may need an iron boost -- apply some chelated iron fertilizer.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden needs nutrition. Give shrubs and trees a slow-release fertilizer. Mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost, which helps the soil, but keep it a few inches away from trunks and stems.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.

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