Green Bean Salad with Red Onion and Prosciutto

    Hi there!  Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend.  Ours was very low-key.....just the four of us hanging around, getting a little work done and then just relaxing.  The weather was nice enough to get outside and fire up the grill, so I cooked up some burgers and, to go along-side, I made a nice Caprese Salad (fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, good olive oil, salt and pepper) and this delicious Green Bean Salad with Red Onion and Prosciutto.  I slightly adapted it from a recipe I saw in a newsletter from Cookies From Italy.com.  It's a great salad!  It's bright and fresh-tasting, and I love the addition of the prosciutto!

     The original recipe calls for regular string beans, but the beans at the nearby grocery store looked terrible, so I decided to go with Haricot vert instead.  Haricot is French for bean and vert is the word for green.  So, that's right.....these are a French variety of green bean.  They are longer and thinner than most American varieties.  And, they're nice and tender!

    Now, don't get all worked up because I'm using French beans in a recipe on my Italian food blog!  Keep an open mind here!  Actually, I think this is a totally appropriate thing to do.  After all, one major premise of Italian cooking is that the best and freshest ingredients are used.  So.....if a recipe calls for something and it doesn't look that great in the market that day, use something else for goodness sake!  I mean literally for goodness sake!    

Green Bean Salad with Red Onion and Prosciutto  (serves 4-6)

1 pound Haricot Vert
2/3 cup thinly sliced red onion
1 1/2 oz. thinly sliced prosciutto, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tblsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt , or to taste
1/8-1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
Pecorino Romano cheese, for shaving over the top

The first thing you'll want to do is blanch the beans.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt.  Drop in the beans and return to a boil.  Cook until they are crisp-tender, about 2 minutes.  Drain them and plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking and set the color.  Then you'll want to pat them dry and place them in the refrigerator for at least an hour.  (You can do this the night before if you would like to.)

    One hour before you want to serve the salad, combine all of the ingredients and toss gently.  Let the salad sit at room temperature for one hour.  Shave the pecorino cheese over the top and serve.  Enjoy this!  It's really good!

Click here for printable recipe.