CRUNCHY GREEN BEAN PICKLES

Anyone who grows beans knows that for 3-4 weeks over the peak of summer, there are always more beans than mouths to eat them. I have tried freezing beans and salting beans and drying beans but none of these methods does justice to the crunchy green beans of summer. This lacto-fermented method actually adds something to the beans and retains the crunch!

Ingredients • 500g (1lb) green beans • sprigs of dill • chilli flakes

• 2 cloves garlic • 1 tablespoon natural sea salt • 1 litre glass jar with airlock lid • 1 fresh grape leaf (optional)

Pick, wash, top and tail 500g of green beans. Put the grape leaf into the bottom of a clean glass preserving jar. Put the jar on its side and stuff the beans in very tightly. Poke in some sprigs of dill, 2 cloves of garlic and some chilli flakes depending on how hot you like it. Make a brine of 2 cups of filtered water and 1 tablespoon of natural sea salt (boil the brine and cool it if you don’t have filtered water) and pour it over the beans until they are covered.

Fit an airlock and set the jar somewhere warm for a week, checking every now and then to make sure no beans are poking their heads up out of the brine. If you get any little patches of mould on top of the brine scoop it out. The brine will go cloudy – don’t worry.

After a week, eat a bean and see if it is tangy enough for you. Check the pH and store in a cold place when ready.

Serve these crunchy pickles with a dish of yoghurt or hummus as a more-ish lacto-fermented snack. Warning: People rarely stop at one!

The grape leaf is a trick an elderly Russian lady passed on to me; apparently it adds crunch to the pickle. Use any leaf high in tannins – oak or horseradish are also good.