Green Bean Salad with Pickled Red Onions and Fried Almonds

This was slightly disappointing. I can see these flavors could be brilliant together, but somehow it didn't work. It does still feel like it could be brilliant with small tweaks, and the quick-pickled onions are definitely worth repeating anyway.

Possibly my beans were too crunchy. I do feel that if they had been softer, the other ingredients would have showed themselves more. I used normal green beans and cooked them for 8 minutes (twice as long as Deb says to), then cooled without the ice bath, but next time I will definitely cook them even longer.

Everything AJ said is true. Amazing - and the roasted almonds seals the deal. As with AJ, I used the narrow green beans, cooked 3 minutes, and snap cooled by immersion in a water bath. My red onions probably only marinated for 40 minutes - which Deb said was OK but suboptimal. I couldn't bring myself to pay $6 for fennel bulb so I skipped that and used a bit extra celery. I also roasted my almonds for about 7 minutes at 425˚F. I was unsure how you could see the whole almonds get brown in the follow-up olive oil sauté, but after about 5 minutes it was clear that it was getting dark brown.

Really excellent - don't skip the almonds!