Last weekend we visited my father’s birth village, Prapreče, a very small settlement by the river Krka with merely 75 inhabitants. My father possesses a medium-sized orchard there, mostly apple and pear trees, and also some peach, apricot, cherry plum, cherry ones, plus a small grape vine which he planted only a couple of years ago. Every fall he provides us with several boxes of apples, a winter variety whose name I can’t recall right now, and I feel mostly grateful for that. As he does not spray the fruit with any sort of poison, we’re able to enjoy the best of it.

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Also, yesterday I was browsing through my old photos and I remembered some dishes with green beans I’d made last summer. Oh how much I long for them!

And while I won’t be able to eat them any time soon yet, I can at least share with you one recipe, right?

LAMB WITH GREEN/YELLOW BEANS

Ingredients for 2:
half a leg of lamb, deboned
1 red onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp sweet paprika (chili)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chopped (fresh) rosemary
1 tsp chopped (fresh) savory
freshly ground (black) pepper
freshly grated nutmeg
a few drops lemon juice
sea salt
olive oil
1-2 bay leaves
150ml dry white wine
200ml puréed tomato
400-500ml freshly prepared vegetable stock (hot)
2 carrots
cca. 150g “dwarf beans” (the one I used here was of Golden teepee variety, you can use the common green bean/string bean without a prob)
some chopped parsley and/or chives

Preparation:
1. Chop the meat into small chunks/cubes, removing the fatty parts, if you wish. Marinate them with paprika, cumin, rosemary, pepper, nutmeg and some drops of lemon juice. Cover and place in the fridge for a couple of hours.
2. Slice the onion and carrot, chop the garlic finely.
3. In a bigger pan with a lid, heat some olive oil and add the meat chunks, stirring to brown them equally on all sides. Now add the onion, garlic, carrot and sautée for a while more. Finally, pour in the liquids; first the wine let reduce), then the tomato purée and enough hot stock to cover the meat. Cover with the lid. Later on, while cooking, you’ll add more stock if necessary.
4. When the lamb becomes tender, add the well washed and cleaned (halved, if too long) beans and pour in some more stock if needed. Now season with savory, the bean spice as I call it, and let simmer until the beans are done (not too tender, preferably still a bit crunchy to the bite) – this might take 20 minutes, more or less.
5. Once cooked, let the dish sit for a while – this will ensure yet a better taste. Serve with chopped parsley and/or chives.

If you liked this dish, you might want to check out another recipe of mine, using green or yellow beans. You’ll find it over here.