Servings - 0.5 to 3
Common Allergens: Soy
Inspect the green beans and cut off any stems or defects. Optionally cut the beans to half or one third of their original length to make it easier to fit them neatly in the frying pan. Place the beans in a bowl near where you'll be cooking them.
Prepare the sauce by combining the mustard, soy sauce, olive oil, curry powder, and brine and mixing well.
Butter the frying pan and put on high heat until the butter starts to smoke. Add as many beans as fit in one layer in the bottom of the frying pan and cook for 60 to 90 seconds, then stir to turn uncooked sides of the bean so that they contact the pan. Repeat 1 to 2 times. The beans should be slightly charred in strips on the surface, but still fairly cruncy inside. Pour the beans into a large bowl and repeat the process until all of the beans have been blackened. Pour the sauce over the blackened beans and mix to spread it evenly over the beans. Then return the beans to the pan and cook for another one to two minutes, until the sauce is cooked onto the surface of the beans. When done it should be dried out enough so that sauce is sticking to the beans like breading instead of stil being liquid. Serve as soon as possible.
Done the official way, this will create giant billows of butter smoke. Covering the pan, cooking at lower heat, or skipping the butter entirely and broiling the beans on a cookie sheet (one you're not too fond of) in the oven are less smoky ways of preparing the recipe, but the slower cooking methods will cause the beans to cook more in the center and they won't be as firm as if cooked with extreme heat. However, if you don't have an outdoor summer kitchen or extremely good kitchen ventilation these methods may be preferable to setting off every fire alarm in the house.