French · Authentic-ish French
Haricots Verts a l'Ail
68 kcal a serving, against 142 for the traditional version. That is 74 kcal off, or 52%, with 3.3g of protein. Serves 4. 10 minutes.
What the traditional version is
A huge pile of topped and tailed green beans, boiled until just tender. They go straight into a hot frying pan where they meet 50g of butter and a handful of crushed garlic. The butter foams up, cooking the garlic slightly before coating every single bean in a thick, rich, glossy emulsion. It's delicious, but it leaves a massive puddle of grease at the bottom of the bowl.
What changed, and what each change costs
50g of butter down to 5g of olive oil
You need a tiny amount of fat just to stop the garlic instantly burning to the metal of the pan. Beyond that, the butter is entirely unnecessary for the actual cooking process. The beans are already cooked, so you're just trying to flavour them.
What it costs you. You lose that sweet, milky richness that butter brings to the party. The beans will taste noticeably sharper, a little less comforting, and much more aggressively garlicky.
Using chicken stock as a glaze
Without the butter, the garlic has nothing to carry it and just clumps up in the pan. A small splash of chicken stock hits the hot metal, reduces instantly and acts as a sticky vehicle to spread the garlic evenly over the beans.
What it costs you. It's no longer a vegetarian dish. If you want to keep it plant-based, use vegetable stock, though it lacks the natural gelatine that makes the chicken stock stick to the vegetables so well. You also miss out on the roasted flavour the chicken brings.
The numbers
| Per serving | Traditional | Lightened |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 142 | 68 |
| Protein | 3.1g | 3.3g |
| Fat | 10.5g | 1.8g |
| Saturated fat | 6.4g | 0.3g |
| Carbohydrate | 11.7g | 12.3g |
| Protein per 100 kcal | 2.2g | 4.9g |
Every figure is computed from the recipe's own weighed ingredient list against public food composition databases. The appendix in Authentic-ish French prints the exact database row used for each ingredient, so any number here can be checked.
Allergens. celery.
The method is in the book
A sharp and intensely savoury plate of greens, then. Not a rich, buttery side dish, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. The garlic hits you squarely in the face, and the chicken stock adds a salty background flavour that plain water simply can't provide. They're crunchy, bright and exactly what you need sitting next to a heavy piece of meat. You won't miss the butter at all, and your kitchen will smell phenomenal.
The quantities and the method for this dish are in Authentic-ish French, along with 54 more. Buy the paperback