Runner beans make an excellent addition to summer meals but they can be quite fiddly to prepare.

They’re a relatively tough, fibrous vegetable, so firstly you need to de-string the beans and then there's all the slicing. If you cook runner beans without slicing then you face the choice of either overcooking them to a pulp or having the outsides cook while the inside remains raw/tough.

This is where a bean slicer is the tool you need.

You can either opt...