Green beans, one of summer’s finest crops, appear to be a fine example of the maxim that gently cooked vegetables are better than severely cooked ones.

Fresh green beans, steamed as lightly as possible and tossed with a little lemon juice and olive oil, are plump, crisp and vibrantly green.

Meanwhile, overcooked green beans are droopy, mushy and grayish and sometimes smell suspiciously sulfurous. Given a choice between the two, the answer seems obvious.

But the obvious answer is the wrong one. To be sure, a French-style preparation of blanched, lightly seasoned green beans isn’t exactly bad. But far better is the Turkish or Greek method of preparing green beans – namely, cooking the living daylights out of them.

If the sight of these slow-braised green beans reminds you of canned green beans, the scourge of school cafeterias everywhere, you may be skeptical.

Suspend your disbelief, if you can, because braised green beans have several things going for them that canned green beans do not. Aromatic onion and garlic, sweet tomato and tart lemon counter any bitterness, while a healthy dose of olive oil lends the beans the luxurious mouthfeel that only fat can provide.

Plus, crucially, these green beans aren’t merely overcooked; they’re so far beyond overcooked that they’ve practically transubstantiated.

When you simmer green beans for a couple of hours, they become tangled, silky and so tender that they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

And it takes little effort to achieve this magical texture: All you have to do is throw all your ingredients into a pot, cover it put it over a reasonably low heat, and wait for two hours.

The hardest part, in fact, is trimming the beans before you cook them. You have to cut or snap off the stem end (the blunt rather than pointy end), which takes awhile when you’re dealing with two pounds of beans. You’ll hate trimming the beans at first – but after you’ve tasted the finished product, you’ll do it again and again.

Slow-Braised Green Beans

2 pounds green beans

1 large red onion, chopped

1 large tomato, chopped

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

2 garlic cloves, minced

Salt and black pepper

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill (optional)

1/2 cup Greek yogurt (optional)

Put the green beans, onion, tomato, olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic in a medium pot. Add 2/3 cup water and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook over medium-low heat until the green beans are so tender that they’re falling apart, about 2 hours. Stir in most of the dill if you’re using it. Taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve hot or at room temperature, garnished with the remaining dill and the yogurt if desired. (Store leftover green beans in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a few days.) Makes 4 to 6 servings.