French Beans with Yogurt Mint and Blue Cheese Sauce

J saw Jamie Oliver prepare yogurt and mint sauce on TV and thought, “Let’s add some blue cheese in there.”

Regretfully, dawn meals and cheap cameras make for awful food photos. J said he’d recreate this for me so I can take a better shot, but he and I have been so busy, we’d probably have to schedule that reshoot ten years down the track.

So yeah, this awful image does not do this dish justice.

Ingredients:

French beans
Yogurt
Mint leaves, finely chopped
Half a cucumber
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. blue cheese

Procedure:

1. Steam beans and set aside.

2. Peel the cucumber and use the peeler to shave thin slices. Do not include the core.

3. Add salt to the cucumber. Squeeze and discard the juice from the cucumber shavings.

4. Mix yogurt, cucumber, mint and blue cheese.

5. Season with salt to taste.

Wife’s Verdict:

I start work at dawn, but because I was a cat in my past life, no amount of sleep, coffee and enforced habit are ever enough to keep me fully awake and enthusiastic before sunrise. Amazingly, this dish woke me up. I suspect the mint was responsible for the nudge, but it could have also been the uniquely perfect mix of yogurt and blue cheese. I’d put this recipe under the eye-popping category.

J’s Quip:

“Great cooks don’t stick to rigid rules and measurements.”