Market Week Day 3: Three-Bean Salad

What to do with all those beans? Aha - three-bean salad! I asked my mum for the recipe. Oh, she said, sounding a little surprised, you just cook the beans, and chop up some onion, and make a vinaigrette. My mum, after all these years, still can't comprehend the depths of my ignorance.

So I went looking online and discovered that no-one seems to agree on what goes into a three-bean salad. Even my beloved Mr. Bittman let me down: to him, a three-bean salad is made with three kinds of dried beans - nooooooo!! Even where there was agreement on the beans, there was none on the dressing. And I was in search of that specific taste - my mum's three-bean salad.

The Recipe: Three-Bean Salad

Here's what I used for the salad - perfect.

But I didn't think that my mum used red wine vinegar in her dressing, and sure enough when I tried a mini version of what is given here it didn't taste like hers at all.

So I did a bit more searching and came across an apple cider-based version. And even though my mum didn't use apple cider vinegar either, this tasted almost right. Though I cut the sugar in half and it was still a little sweet for me. And I should have doubled the recipe, we were a bit short on juice.

Thoughts/Tips/Mistakes

See above for the dressing issue. Any tips? Otherwise I'll have to bug my mother...

One other thing - something I saw recommended on chowhound a while ago - I soaked the onions. They really made me cry when chopping, so thought would try it. Did it make any difference? Who knows.

Also steamed the beans, rather than boiling. Again, don't know if that matters, it's just how I normally cook beans (they tasted great, really farm-fresh.)

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