Mazagan Beans

Ingredients

• Mazagan beans (young Windsor beans)
• small bacon (middling or flitch)
• bread crumbs
• a little butter

Instructions

1. Gather the beans in the morning when they are full grown but still quite young. Do not shell them until you are ready to cook.
2. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the beans and cook until tender.
3. While the beans cook, boil the bacon (middling or flitch) until well cooked. Remove the skin, coat the bacon with bread crumbs, and toast it until the crumbs are golden.
4. Drain all the water from the cooked beans. Toss the beans with a little butter. Lay the toasted bacon in the middle of a serving dish and pour the buttered beans around it.
5. Note: If using larger Windsor beans, boil them until the skins slip off easily, then prepare them as a puree, as plain dressing renders them coarse.