Green Beans with a Honey-Sesame Dressing

Barney Kulok’s String Bean Salad

NOTES

This is a savory and potent dressing. It goes well with string beans, but I could imagine using this for soba noodles, roasted broccoli, eggplant …

INSTRUCTIONS

In a large pot, boil water. Add the green beans and boil for 2 minutes to blanche; drain and run under cold water to stop the beans from cooking, and pat dry.

Use a Japanese suribachi with a grooved interior or a mortar and pestle (or a food processor, if you prefer) to grind the sesame seeds. Mix in the soy sauce, tupelo honey, sesame oil, tahini and rice vinegar to form an even paste.

Toss the green beans with the paste, and garnish with additional black and white sesame seeds.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

MODERATE

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SERVES

6

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PREP TIME

10 MINS

Salad

  • cups 
    green beans

Dressing

  • 1/2 
    CUP 
    TOASTED SESAME SEEDS
  • 1/2 
    TBS 
    MIRIN
  • TBS 
    SOY SAUCE
  • TBS 
    TUPELO HONEY
  • TBS 
    TOASTED SESAME OIL
  • TBS 
    TAHINI
  • TBS 
    RICE VINEGAR
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    ADDITIONAL BLACK AND WHITE SESAME SEEDS, FOR GARNISH

INSTRUCTIONS

In a large pot, boil water. Add the green beans and boil for 2 minutes to blanche; drain and run under cold water to stop the beans from cooking, and pat dry.

Use a Japanese suribachi with a grooved interior or a mortar and pestle (or a food processor, if you prefer) to grind the sesame seeds. Mix in the soy sauce, tupelo honey, sesame oil, tahini and rice vinegar to form an even paste.

Toss the green beans with the paste, and garnish with additional black and white sesame seeds.

The first time I had artist Barney Kulok’s cooking was after a night of gallery openings in the Lower East Side.  I was famished after so much socializing and pretending to look at art, so Barney offered to cook me dinner. We stopped at Citarella, he got wild salmon and the best salad greens he could find (the man knows his audience). Back at his home in Long Island City, Barney calmly moved about the kitchen, singularly focused, unfazed by the cocktail nuts, cheese, wine or idle gossip. It was one of the most generously made meals I have eaten to date. Impromptu, no-fuss, and prepared with so much pleasure, I didn’t even feel bad that I didn’t do a thing to help.

Barney Kulok is a man of mystery. Just try and find an interview with him online. For a photographer with galleries in New York and Paris and exhibitions all over Europe, it’s unusual to find such a successful artist so stoic. But he was more than willing to open his home, share his spectacular salad (and show me his honey collection, which was incredible), but he himself would take a back seat, allowing his string beans take center stage.

Truth be told, us artist types tend to love the sound of our own voices and to wax poetic about the meaning and intention behind our work. But maybe when your work is really, really good, you don’t need to talk it to death?