Thomas Keller's Salad of Haricots Verts, Tomato Tartare, and Chive Oil

High end french bean casserole

Thomas Keller's Salad of Haricots Verts, Tomato Tartare, and Chive Oil

This is from Keller's book, The French Laundry.

Ingredients

Chive oil:

  • 1 small bunch of chives
  • 1/2 cup of neutral oil (canola, avocado etc) or extra virgin olive oil

Tomato Tartare (and powder):

  • 4 Medium tomatoes
  • 16 sprigs of thyme
  • 1 tsp finely chopped shallot
  • 1/3 tsp balsamic vinegar

Haricots Verts:

  • 4 oz or 1/4 lb haricots verts (green beans), cut into 1-2" lengths
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • Micro greens (for decoration)

Instructions

Tomato Tartare:

  1. Boil some water with salt in a pan
  2. Have a bowl of iced water in a bowl nearby
  3. Make a shallow cross in the bottom of each of all 4 tomatoes.
  4. Drop the toamtoes into the boiling water for about 5 seconds, and put in the ice water bath.
  5. Peel the tomatoes, and save the skins.
  6. Cut the tomatoes into quarters, carefully removed all the seeds, cut away the inner pulp and ribs. Discard the pulp and seeds, but keep the ribs and add them to the skins
  7. This should leave a smooth "tomato petal".
  8. Save all the trimmings (excluding the seeds) in a bowl (withe skins) for making tomato powder later.
  9. Preheated the oven to 250F
  10. Line a large sheet pan with aluminium foil or parchment paper, drizzled with olive oil, and dust it with salt and pepper.
  11. Line another sheet pan with parchment paper. Dry the toamto skins and ribs with a paper towel as much as possible and spread out the tomato skins and ribs
  12. Lay all the tomato petals on the foil with inside of the tomato facing down, seasoned with more olive oil, salt, and pepper, and topped each piece with a small sprig of thyme.
  13. Put the sheet pans in the oven, and roast for 90 minutes.
  14. Remove the thyme and put the tomato petals (and the oil) into a sealed container and leave in the fridge until needed.
  15. Just before assembling, cut the tomato petals into small diamonds and toss with their juices/oil,the chopped shallots and balsamic vinegar

Tomato Powder:

  1. Leave the pieces in the oven until they are completely dry and crispy
  2. Put the pieces onto a plate or dish and microwave on20%power for 40-60 minutes. Donotmicrowave on full power, or the pieces may ignite!
  3. Put the pieces into a food dehydrator and dehydrate until crispy, which could be 12-24 hours
  4. After drying, pop the tomato pieces into a food processor or coffee grinder and process into as fine a powder as possible
  5. If you're OK with having some chunks in the powder then leave as is, otherwise pass the ground
  6. Put the powder into an airtight container until needed

Haricots Verts:

  1. Boil some water in a pan with some salt
  2. Have a bowl of iced water in a bowl nearby
  3. Top and tails the beans, and cut into 2" pieces
  4. Blanch for 3-5 minutes, chill in an ice bath and dry on paper towels
  5. Note: do not discard the hot water, leave it on the heat and use it for the chive oil (next)
  6. Store the beans in the fridge until assembling
  7. Make the salad dressing by whisking heavy cream to thickened, folding in the red wine vinegar with a whisk, and season it with a bit of salt and pepper. If not using immediately then put it in the fridge until ready to use.
  8. Just before assembling, toss the green beans into the dressing (you probably won't need all of the dressing).

Chive oil:

  1. Blanch the chives in the water from the haricots verts for about a minute, chill in an ice bath, and dry
  2. blend with oil, and slowly drain through a cheese cloth or fine sieve. I prefer a neutral oil (e.g. canola or avocado) but use olive oil if you like the taste (it can be a little bitter)
  3. Put the oil in a squeeze bottle and refrigerated it.

To assemble:

  1. Put a 3" ring mould in the center of the plate and add a few tablespoons of the Tomato Tartare.
  2. On top of the Tomato Tartare add some haricots verts in red wine vinegar cream.
  3. Top with some micro greens.
  4. Remove the mould and drizzle some chive oil around the stack.
  5. Sprinkle some tomato powder around everything.

Notes

  • Since the tomatoes (really, the powder) take such a long time, probably a good idea to do these the day before you need them
  • You can obviously use 'normal' green beans
  • The tomato powder is pretty interesting/intense stuff. Given the time and effort required, it may make sense to make more. You can add a bunch of cut and de-seeded cherry tomatoes. You can add other types (e.g. Roma), but you should de-skin those if possible. Store in an airtight container.