Will Wilkinson wrote:
In message , jamps writes
Last year I grew very successfully, and for the first time, runner
beans. I
was disappointed with the lack of flavour and wondered which, in your
opinion, have the best flavour.

I grow Scarlet Emperor and have always found the flavour very good. It's
important to pick them fairly young though to avoid stringy beans - I
pick every other day at the height of the season.

Did I say 'Scarlet Runner' up there? If I did, I meant Scarlet Emperor,
honest injun.

--
Rusty

In article ,
Rusty Hinge wrote:

Dried, ripened runners are good, too, and make excellent winter fare.

But like red kidney beans, the ripened ones must be boiled vigorously
for a good ten minutes before being eaten.

Allegedly.

It's more than allegedly, but the point of the 'vigorous' boiling
is solely to ensure that all of the beans are held at boiling point
for long enough to destroy the toxins. Following that, they can
be cooked at any temperature.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Will Wilkinson wrote in
:

In message , jamps
writes
Last year I grew very successfully, and for the first time, runner
beans. I was disappointed with the lack of flavour and wondered
which, in your opinion, have the best flavour.

I grow Scarlet Emperor and have always found the flavour very good.
It's important to pick them fairly young though to avoid stringy beans
- I pick every other day at the height of the season.

Will

Scarlet Emperor are my choice too.

This is my third year gardening with veg. and during the first two years
I tried lots of varieties of runner beans(as I did with other veg.) and
they stand out in terms of quality and quantity.
Have you considered drying the beans inside the pod to put into stews,(they
thicken the liquid) or even boiling them as an alternative to rice or
potatoes(lets say)during winter when other things are a bit thin on the
ground.

Of course things can get a bit windy, but someone mentioned in this thread
how to reduce flatulence by dowsing with boiling water.

Take care
Part_No

"Rusty Hinge" wrote in message
...
Spider wrote:
wrote in message
...
In article ,
Spider wrote:
You're certainly right about picking them younger; we try not to let
them
get too tough. We always miss one or two, though :~(. It's my mouth
that's the modernist, btw; the rest of me is fairly old fashioned ...
yup,
including the body, before anyone else says it:~). When you say
'dried'
runners, do you mean the entire pod, or the inner seeds?
I am a bit of an old fossil, as people may have guessed :-) I mean
the inner seeds.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

:~). I thought you must have. RG has tried them, but I confess I
didn't bother. I'm sure they'd be good in a casserole, perhaps I should
try that sometime.

See earlier post - should be boiled VIGOROUSLY...

--
Rusty


Ahh! I'll remember that. Presumably because they're toxic otherwise, like
red kidney beans?

Spider

On 24 Jan, 11:24, "Part_No" wrote:
Will Wilkinson wrote :

In message , jamps
writes
Last year I grew very successfully, and for the first time, runner
beans. *I was disappointed with the lack of flavour and wondered
which, in your opinion, have the best flavour.

I grow Scarlet Emperor and have always found the flavour very good.
It's important to pick them fairly young though to avoid stringy beans
- I pick every other day at the height of the season.

Will

Scarlet Emperor are my choice too.

I have given up on runner beans because they get tough and stringy. I
now grow climbing french beans instead, they never get so tough or at
all stringy however large they get, although I try to pick them before
they get too large. there are laways a few that hide under leaves
unitl they get enormous!

Jonathan

Sacha wrote:
On 2010-01-23 23:31:55 +0000, Rusty Hinge
said:

Another vegetable I can only get frozen (most of the year) is broad
beans. Even Chivers seems to have stopped canning them.

Mmmmmm! A joint of bacon simmered in a closed pan, creamed potatoes,
broad beans, leeks in white sauce, or just parsley sauce on the ham
and beans...

I'm beginning to feel hungry.

You just described Ray's favourite childhood memory meal in the last
part of your food sentence. Is it an Essex thing?!

Doubt it - my mother was raised in Kent. The only reason the family
(Stepfather, Mother and I, at the time) waded across the river was to
put a little distance between my (overdoting) paternal grandmother and a
serene family life.

His mother used to
do boiled bacon, the first broad beans, new potatoes and parsley sauce
every year. I made that for him this year and I absolutely swear that
dinner at the Ivy wouldn't have pleased him more. What is more, even i
- who don't much like cooking - had to admit it was utterly delicious.

Yes indeed - and try this, if you ever have enough people for a meal to
make it worthwhile - take a ham and poke cloves into its skin (a skewer
helps...). Just melt some set honey and paint the ham with it, then
cover it with crushed black peppercorns and broken mace blades.

Cover whole ham with (plain) flour and water paste - as near the
consistency of pastry as you can, and it still sticks.

Cover with foil.

Place in pan in an oven on low, and cook for a good long time.

Note - don't discard the shell - it's divine!

--
Rusty

Part_No wrote:

how to reduce flatulence by dowsing with boiling water.

Explain?

--
Rusty

Jonathan wrote:

I have given up on runner beans because they get tough and stringy. I
now grow climbing french beans instead, they never get so tough or at
all stringy however large they get, although I try to pick them before
they get too large. there are laways a few that hide under leaves
unitl they get enormous!

You're not doing it right, then.

You should pick them at the stage where you can snap them across without
an evident length of 'string' showing.

--
Rusty

Rusty Hinge wrote:
jamps wrote:
Last year I grew very successfully, and for the first time, runner
beans. I was disappointed with the lack of flavour and wondered
which, in your opinion, have the best flavour.

Scarlet Runner - but try to get some saved-over-the-years seed from an
old gardener.

Ah, that's the one - scarlet emperor, not runner.

Been growing them on and off (in the family) since the mid 1940s.

--
Rusty

Sacha wrote:

Thanks, Rusty, I'll remember that for next time we cook that. I assume
you've taken the rind off the ham first? Or perhaps not......

Good Lord no!

You remove most of the basting if you do that, and the juices soak into
the dough, and - oh, I've got to stop thinking about it! It'll spoil my
dry biscuits...

--
Rusty