Tag Archives: how to cook romano beans

It’s the Season For Slow-Roasted Romano Beans

Romano beans turn ever so soft and juicy in the heat of the oven.
Romano beans turn ever so soft and juicy in the heat of the oven.

They look like green beans on steroids that have been run over by a Mack truck.

Now’s the time to get your fill of Romano beans.

Don’t let these sturdy flat beans fool you, though, into thinking you can cook them just like you would green beans.

These meaty beans do best when cooked for a much longer time beyond al dente.

Earlier this summer, I tried the Zuni Cafe method for “Long-Cooked Romano Beans” in which they’re gently cooked on the stovetop. It’s a super-easy and wonderfully delicious recipe. But it does require 2 hours of cooking time. And I’ll be the first to admit that there are days when time gets away from me, and I find myself with all of 1 hour to get dinner on the table.

Thankfully, I came across this alternative method for cooking them that takes only 40 minutes in the oven. “Slow-Roasted Romano Beans” is from “The A.O.C. Cookbook” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013) by Suzanne Goin, the chef-owner of Los Angeles’ revered A.O.C. and the dearly departed Lucques restaurant.

An alum of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, Goin has a skilled hand with most any ingredient, and especially seasonal produce.

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You Want Me To Cook These Things For How Long?!?

Fresh Italian romano beans -- cooked perfectly for a crazy amount of time.
Fresh Italian romano beans — cooked perfectly for a crazy amount of time.

The first time I came across this recipe for romano beans, I did a double-take.

Even then, I couldn’t quite believe it.

That’s because it calls for cooking these meaty Italian broad beans on the stove-top for two hours. Yes, fresh beans, not dried, cooked for two whole hours.

“Long-Cooked Romano Beans” boggled my mind.

But I had faith. After all, the recipe is by the late-great Judy Rogers, and it comes from her seminal classic, “The Zuni Cafe Cookbook A Compendium of Recipes & Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant” (W.W. Norton and Company, 2002).

Surely, the chef who created the most perfect roast chicken of all time and so many other iconic California cuisine staples was worth trusting on this, even if in the back of my mind, I feared winding up with green beans as pallid as those from a can.

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