In their thrice-monthly emailings trying to get me to sign on for the magazine, America’s Test Kitchen just sent me this Green Bean Casserole recipe- I’ve never tried it, but looks pretty non toxic:
Green Bean Casserole
The components of the casserole can be prepared ahead of time. Store the bread-crumb topping in an airtight container in the refrigerator and combine with the onions just before cooking. Combine the beans and cooled sauce in a baking dish, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. To serve, remove the plastic wrap and heat the casserole in a 425-degree oven for 10 minutes, then add the topping and bake as directed. This recipe can be halved and baked in a 2-quart (or 8-inch-square) baking dish. If making a half batch, reduce the cooking time of the sauce in step 3 to about 6 minutes (1 3/4 cups) and the baking time in step 4 to 10 minutes.
Serves 10 to 12
Topping
4 slices white sandwich bread , each slice torn into quarters
2 tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 cups canned fried onions (about 6 ounces)
Beans and Sauce
Table salt
2 pounds green beans , ends trimmed, and halved
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound white button mushrooms , stems trimmed, wiped clean, and broken into 1/2-inch pieces (see illustrations below)
3 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
Ground black pepper
3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
FOR THE TOPPING: Pulse bread, butter, salt, and pepper in food processor until mixture resembles coarse crumbs, about ten 1-second pulses. Transfer to large bowl and toss with onions; set aside.
FOR THE BEANS AND SAUCE: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Fill large bowl with ice water. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large Dutch oven. Add 2 tablespoons salt and beans. Cook beans until bright green and crisp-tender, about 6 minutes. Drain beans in colander and plunge immediately into ice water to stop cooking. Spread beans on paper-towel-lined baking sheet to drain.
Add butter to now-empty Dutch oven and melt over medium-high heat until foaming subsides. Add mushrooms, garlic, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper; cook until mushrooms release moisture and liquid evaporates, about 6 minutes. Add flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in broth and bring to simmer, stirring constantly. Add cream, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until sauce is thickened and reduced to 3 1/2 cups, about 12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add green beans to sauce and stir until evenly coated. Arrange in even layer in 3-quart (or 13 by 9-inch) baking dish. Sprinkle with topping and bake until top is golden brown and sauce is bubbling around edges, about 15 minutes. Serve immediately.
I have to side with velvetjones here, since no one else will (okay, Antigen, but that’s his job, in’it?) and say that green bean casserole is a nasty combation of overprocessed foods (as is anything that utilizes the abomination known as “cream of mushroom soup” as a matrix), notwithstanding my personal aversion to string beans by themselves or in combination with any other food item. “Tastes like Thanksgiving”? I weep for humanity. Next, we’ll have a thread where people profess to like the canned cranberry gelatin-like substance, still congealed and sliced into disks, better than fresh cranberry sauce.
Hey, you know I’m not normally a complete food philistine but green bean casserole has the whole nostalgia thing going for it which counts for a something (and explains my fondness for cheap, grocery store sugar cookies). Food is about the whole experience, not just the taste. Plus, as a veg, it was one of the only things I could ever actually eat at Thanksgiving. (I always had the pathetic plate of green bean casserole, a little glob of cranberries (real canberries!) and a crescent roll or two.) I wouldn’t mind trying one of them fancy, homemade green bean casseroles one day tho’…
I don’t get it - my job? Huh? (And I’m female, btw)
Ok, well, maybe you’ll hate me for this, but I love the congealed jelly cranberry stuff. Splort into the bowl straight out of the can, with the little can-lines still on it. Mmmm. I don’t understand why I like this version better, because I normally like all things cranberry. Guess it’s a childhood thing. And since green bean casserole is probably a food imprint left over from a happy childhood too, I’ll forgive the lot of you weirdos. I’ll just double up on the mashed taters, thanks.
I never eat the stuff, but yeah, the splort into the bowl is what makes it nostalgic too. This is usually the first “dish” that kids learn how to prepare for thanksgiving, as long as they’ve mastered the can opener.
Someone, no one knows who, usually takes a small chunk out of it and then it’s wrapped with plastic wrap (still in the bowl and still with the can lines) and gets pushed to the back of the fridge until mom cleans out the fridge a month later to make room for the Christmas dinner leftovers.
I just love anything with the canned french-fried onions in it. I eat those things by the handful, just pour or pinch them out of the can. Once I ate a whole can of french-fried onions before I realized it!
I recant, as you are clearly a lady of great taste and beauty, and thus, there must be something to green bean casserole that I just…I just…I just don’t get. Sigh…well, I don’t understand the Japanese anime that my officemate keeps sending home with me either, but then, he doesn’t seem to grasp the utter brilliance of Akira Kurosawa. (His singular comment on Ran: “It was very…long.”) And I must confess, quite independent of an aversion to green beans in any form that hasn’t been reduced to component atoms, no great nostalgia for the holiday of Thanksgiving. (No tree to hide behind, see, and nestly softly under then blinking lights while the parents were busy throwing tableware at one another.) So I belay my objection, and will merely pass silently on the green bean casserole in favor of a double helping of the mashed potatoes.
I…I…I’m speachless. (Now, if I can just keep my predilection for late night canned tuna-and-Newcastle feeds from getting out, lest I give them ammunition to strike back at me…)
The first time I ever saw it was at my grandparents’ 60th anniversary/Christmas Eve party. My aunt had made it. My oldest sister and I stared, in horror, and simultaneously whispered, “That looks like vomit!” We were coerced to try some, and we agreed that it tasted like it, too.
It does not. It looks like a giant bird took a giant bird crap.
We do, now that my neice and nephews are older, have real cranberry sauce, because I bother to make it. I have very fond memories of the “splort” the canned stuff makes, but I never cared for the taste - honestly, I don’t care for the taste of the real deal either, but my mom likes it.
I am happy to report that my house, like the houses of all of my family members, is a green bean casserole-free zone. Green beans are, themselves, the height of disgusting. Smother them with ick, and they’re even more disgusting. (Strangely, I’m the only one in my family who hates green beans; yet apparently my hatred is strong enough to banish them from all holiday tables – yay!)
Okay, now that’s just disgusting.
velvetjones, that recipe looks yummy. If I were permitted to bring food to family parties, I’d bring that one to T-giving.
I’ve always been baffled by the casserole as well. Fresh green beans are heaven, and I can’t understand why you’d smother them in crap. Canned green beans are the work of the devil, and no amount of crap you smother them in can hide that fact.
I had never heard of a green bean casserole until I went to PA…my hubby loves it and would drive the 4-5 hours just for “Deb’s green bean casserole”. I find it a little smushy, myself. She puts “fried onions in a can” in it and processed cheese. That’s about all I know for ingredients.
I’ve never tried to make it, despite my hubby’s requests, because it just wouldn’t be the same without our friends. Same goes for her iced tea which is another thing I’d never tried before I went there. Sometimes it just doesn’t taste the same without the company of friends.
Yeah, I’m with you. Canned cranberry, um, stuff is delicious. I have a major aversion to anything with little mystery crunchy bits, which home made cranberry sauce is full of. Stems? Seeds? Bug legs? Dirt? I don’t know, but I’m not eating it. Bring on the gelatinous tube!
Uh, maybe you should have a word with whoever’s cooking your homemade cranberry sauce. If your mom’s putting bugs in, maybe you should sit down and have a talk about what she’s bitter about. You’re supposed to check 'em for stems and all before you put them in the pot.
I eat plenty of disgusting, over processed food, but I draw the line at the hated GBC.
Greenbeans, fresh or frozen, taste like grass. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup tastes like… Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, no matter how you try to disguise it. Icky, icky. I could get graphic, but I won’t.
Cranberries, in any form, I suspect are really poison. Some people are more immune to them. Not me. Again, icky, icky.
Sweet potatoes and yams are slimey. Putting marshmallows on them doesn’t change that. Icky, icky.
I like Green Bean Casserole, even though I suggested a Green Bean Curry instead of the traditional creamed crunch, greenie beanie casserole a short while back in a Thanksgiving recipes thread. I have to admit, I did feel a bit heretical offering up Green Bean recipes from a Hare Krishna website for Thanksgiving. But I’m a spice and chile addict and I think most Thanksgiving tables could stand an infusion of flavor. It just seems like Thanksgiving foods are all very bland, including and maybe especially GBC. But Hey, it wouldn’t be TG without GBC.
And canned cranberry sauce is a good thing. It slices perfectly for leftover turkey sandwiches.
I never cared for canned cranberry sauce, but I love the fresh stuff. And I agree, it’s not supposed to have crunchy bits. Whoever’s making crunchy cranberry sauce isn’t rinsing and sorting the cranberries well before saucing them.
I will occasionally, regardless of the time of year, buy a small can of jelled cranberry-like substance and eat it all by myself, as a snack. It’s like cranberry Jell-O. Yum!
You’re supposed to check 'em for stems and all before you put them in the pot.