Haricots Verts wrapped in Pancetta

This simple little dish is equally at home as an antipasto (appetiser) as it is as a contorno (vegetable side dish). It is essentially made of only 2 ingredients, but if these are of good quality, the end result is amazing!

Pancetta is an Italian bacon, made from pork belly. It is quite easy to get these days in supermarkets, but if you can't get pancetta, you can substitute it with thin slices of unsmoked streaky bacon.

Haricots Verts is French for green beans, but these are slightly longer and thinner than standard green beans. Again, these should be readily available in most supermarkets, but if you can't find them, substitute with normal green beans.

Ingredients

300g Haricots Verts

16 straight Pancetta slices 

black pepper to season

olive oil to drizzle

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 C.

Boil a medium pan of salted water. When the water is boiled, add the haricots verts and cook these for 2-3 minutes. The beans should still have a bite to them. Drain the water and put these into a colander to dry.

Lay one of the pancetta slices out flat on a plate. Place 4 or 5 beans in a bundle at one end of the pancetta. Roll the pancetta up around the beans. Place the rolled beans onto a shallow baking tray covered with a sheet of greaseproof paper, or drizzled with a little olive oil. The greaseproof paper/oil is purely to stop the pancetta from sticking to the bottom of the baking tray.

Repeat this process with the remaining pancetta slices and haricots verts.

Place the baking tray into the middle of the preheated oven and bake the pancetta/bean bundles for about 15-20 minutes.

Buon appetito! Enjoy!