Green bean salad (Ensalada de judias verdes)

Ensalada de judias verdes was the second starter of the Sunday lunch with friends was this salad, from Janet Mendel's Cooking in Spain.

Serves: 6 persons.

Ingredients:

• 500g green beans
• 1 large potato
• ½ onion, minced
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• ½ tsp cumin
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ½ tsp fennel seeds (the recipe called for 1 sprig fresh fennel leaves or parsley but I decided to improvise)
• salt & pepper to taste
• 2 hard-cooked eggs, quartered.

Method:

1. Remove strings from beans if necessary, but leave them whole. I thought this wasn't right and cut them in half. Maybe with smaller green beans it makes sense to leave them whole.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Cook the beans and the unpeeled potato in boiling salted water until just tender.
3. Drain and rinse in cold water.
   
   
   
4. Peel the potato and slice it.
5. Arrange the beans on a serving platter with layers of sliced potatoes between. Again, this makes no sense as there are a lot more green beans than potatoes so I just toss them on the serving plate.
6. Sprinkle the minced onion over the top.
   
   
   
7. Whisk together the oil, vinegar, garlic, salt & pepper and cumin and drizzle this over the salad.
   
   
   
8. Sprinkle with finely chopped fennel leaves. I used seeds and added these to the dressing.
9. Garnish with quartered eggs.