Green Bean, Potato, and Dill Salad

By on 30 June 2011 in Salads with 11 Comments.

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After weeks of watching our garden expectantly, our green beans are finally here!  We jumped at the first opportunity to use them with a new recipe idea.

Sometimes, recipes don’t work out on the first try, requiring a bit of tweaking (or a lot, like this one). But every so often, they’re an instant hit – which was the case with this salad. We loosely based it on a green bean salad from The Herbal Kitchen, made a few of our own adaptions, and gave it our preliminary taste test. The verdict? Perfect. No tweaking needed.

I’m a huge dill fan, so I loved being able to use some of our own in this dish. I found the combination of sherry vinegar, olive oil, and shallot to be a perfect blend – none of the flavors were too distinctive, but all meshed together into an understated but delicious meld. Feel free to adjust to your taste as necessary, or try other types of oil, vinegar, cheese, or herbs (the original recipe called for basil and parmesan, which would also be tasty!). And for a more substantial vegetarian meal, you also could add chickpeas, beans, or a hardboiled egg.

But we found this combination to be pretty darn satisfying. No tweaks here.

Green Bean, Potato, and Dill Salad
Serves six as a side

What You Need
2 pounds red potatoes
1 pound green beans
1 shallot
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
1/4 cup fresh dill
Feta crumbles

What To Do

1  Start a large pot of salted water to boil

2  Prepare the ingredients: While you’re waiting for the water to boil, wash the potatoes and chop them into bite-sized pieces. Wash the green beans and chop off the ends. Coarsely chop the fresh dill. Finely chop the shallot, then place it in a small bowl with 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar to sit and mellow for a bit. (You also can complete some of this prep during Step 3.)

3  Boil the potatoes: When the water comes to a boil, place the potatoes in boiling water for a total of about 14 minutes. Prepare a bowl of ice water for the green beans (see next the step).

4  Blanche the beans: In the last 2 to 3 minutes of cooking the potatoes, add the green beans and let them cook until just tender and still bright green. After the 2 to 3 minutes, immediately remove the beans from the water and place them into the bowl of ice water (this stops the cooking, allowing them to stay green and crisp). Then drain the potatoes. If you have time, cool the potatoes before you assemble the salad.

5  Assemble the salad: In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, beans, shallot (with vinegar), dill, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and a good amount of fresh ground pepper. Stir to combine; taste and add more oil, vinegar, salt, or pepper to taste. Serve sprinkled with feta crumbles.

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