NEVER Boil Green Beans Again — Seniors Try This Old MOUNTAIN Trick

Get my printed cookbook: 36 recipes, 60 kitchen methods: https://vernasbook.com Or text me the word BOOK at (865) 460-6262 and I will send it straight to your phone. Look at the pot on your stove. Green beans in a gallon of boiling water, and by the time they come out they are gray, limp, and tasting of nothing. That was not your cooking. That was the pot. My mother never boiled a green bean in her life. Two cups of water, a piece of smoked meat, and a lid, and one pot of beans became the supper people remembered. And at the end, the one thing from that pot most folks pour straight down the drain. 🍲 MY MOTHER'S GREEN BEANS AND NEW POTATOES (serves 6) • 2 lb green beans, ends trimmed and snapped in half (string them first if they are old garden beans) • 3 to 4 strips of bacon, cut small (weeknight) OR 1 smoked ham hock (Sunday) • About 2 cups of water, not a gallon • 1 small onion, optional • Black pepper • About a dozen small new potatoes, scrubbed and left whole, optional • Vinegar or a pinch of sugar, only if your house uses them, and only at the end • Salt, tasted twice 🔥 THE METHOD 1. Use a wide, heavy pot with a lid, like a Dutch oven. Not a tall, narrow stockpot. 2. Put the bacon or hock in with the 2 cups of water, lid on, and simmer 20 minutes, until the liquid is cloudy and tastes a little smoky and salty. If it tastes like plain water, it is not ready. 3. Lay the beans right on top of the meat. They will look like too many. Press them down, lid on, 10 minutes, until they slump into the liquid. Do not add more water. 4. Turn the heat down until one slow bubble lifts every couple of seconds. Lid on and leave it alone, at least 1 hour, up to 2 hours for grown beans and a ham hock. 5. For the last 45 minutes, lay the new potatoes on top, lid back on. They steam in the bean liquor. 6. In the last 10 minutes, stir in vinegar or a pinch of sugar if your family does. Taste for salt after the beans slump and again at the end. 7. Pull the hock meat off the bone and stir it back in. 🍳 THE QUICK VERSION (young early-summer beans, about 10 minutes) Widest skillet, good and hot, a spoon of bacon grease. Beans in dry, washed and patted completely dry. Leave them until they blister and brown in spots, toss, salt, a small splash of water at the end, lid on 2 minutes. 🥄 DO NOT POUR OFF THE POT LIQUOR That cup of dark broth is everything the beans and the meat gave up. Cornbread goes in the bowl to soak it up, it goes over the potatoes, and it starts tomorrow's soup. Even better the second day. Reheat low, never at a boil. THE HONEST WORDS (because I will not oversell you): • Gray and limp → too much water, too hard a boil. Two cups, low heat. • Squeaky in the middle → pulled too soon. The darker olive color is what done looks like. • Stringy → strings missed on old garden beans. Snap the stem end and pull down the seam. • Too salty → the meat already carries salt. Taste twice. • Vinegar taste gone → it went in too early. Acid belongs in the last 10 minutes. If you liked this, please subscribe. A new old-fashioned mountain recipe or trick comes out every week, and it costs you nothing and helps me more than you would guess. Make a pot this weekend. If you only change two things: two cups of water instead of a gallon, and the heat down to one slow bubble. Then tell me in the comments what your family put in their pot of beans. Have a blessed day. -Verna Chapters: 0:00 Why boiled green beans go gray 1:10 The right pot 1:45 The book, and back to the beans 2:17 What a hard boil does to green beans 3:21 Bacon or ham hock: choose your meat 4:19 Build the broth: 2 cups, 20 minutes 4:58 Beans in, lid on, heat down low 6:02 New potatoes on top 6:45 Crisp-tender vs. long-cooked: the honest truth 7:47 When to add vinegar, sugar and salt 8:29 Stringing the beans (the front porch job) 9:14 The quick skillet shortcut 9:55 The time I ruined it 10:54 Never pour off the pot liquor 11:27 You can't overcook them (and day-two is better) 12:50 Tell me in the comments #greenbeans #southerncooking #oldfashionedcooking #appalachiancooking