I’m doing Christmas dinner again this year. I’m serving rump roast and Yorkshire pudding. I usually also do a side of steamed vegetables. I have decided that is too boring, though. I pulled out my copy of Joy (1975), and looked at the Green Bean Casserole recipe. It has two plusses. It’s easy, and it sounds delicious. Unfortunately, it requires the use of the oven for an hour. I cannot spare that - the oven will be in use for the beef and pudding. Would any one know of a way to adapt Rombaur’s recipe to a slow cooler?
Basically, the original has you layer beans, butter, chopped onions, and green peppers in a buttered baking dish. That’s covered and baked for an hour at 350.
I’m thinking I could use the same arrangement in a slow cooker set on high. But for how long? And would it be any good?
Is your oven simply not big enough for both the beans and the roast, or are you worried about different temperatures? If it’s the latter, what temp are you roasting the beef at?
Does the recipe call for fresh or canned or frozen beans?
The problem I can see, Athena, is that the Yorkshire pud needs to be cooked at the last minute, and involves jacking the heat up after the roast is taken out to rest.
I’m not sure how long the casserole would hold. A very simple, tasty, quick alternative for this that you could do on top of the stove isMadhur Jaffrey’s Gujurati Green Beans.
I don’t see how a recipe for something that’s to be baked in an oven would possibly translate to a slow-cooker. One blasts food with high-temp and very dry heat … the other uses long, slow, moist heat. I think if you tried it, you’d wind up with something very soupy and schloopy. Edible, but probably won’t taste much like “green bean casserole,” so please don’t call it that, since that’s what your guests will be expecting. You could try it and call it “green bean unpronounceableFrenchword” instead.
There’s a lot of area between “steamed veggies” and “something that needs to be baked” so I’d explore some other option.
That’s not quite true. By putting the dish in a covered casserole or Dutch oven, as it appears the OP’s recipe does, it effectively turns the dry heat into moist heat. 350F is a good bit higher than a slow cooker’s high setting, which is usually in the 250-300F range. However, I expect that the dish would turn out perfectly fine in the slow cooker. In both cases, the heating method is moist heat, the only variable being the amount of heat and the time. It doesn’t look like in either case we’re look at al dente green beans, not at 1 hour @ 350 covered, at any rate, so there’s plenty of room for slop in timing.
As villa pointed out, between the low heat of the roast, and the blasting of the pudding, there’s no way anything requiring an hour at 350 could survive.
The only reason I thought this might translate to a slow cooker is because it baked on a covered dish. I’m just a little hesitant to use my parents and in-laws as guinea pigs.
What temp are you cooking the beef at? You can always cook it with the beef, and then keep the beans warm on the stovetop while you finish your Yorkshire pudding. Or go the slow cooker route. I would guess 2, maybe 2.5, hours on high.
I actually suspect it would (I have a slow-cooked green bean dish that cooks for 3 hours at 350), but wouldn’t want to try it out with the other options available to you.
Would you be able to cook the casserole first and set it aside? You could wrap it in heat packs and towels, or even something like this. My mom has an insulated casserole carrier (that’s what the link is) and I know it keeps stuff warm from our house to grandma’s house, 90 minutes away.
Depends on how long you need the oven for, of course.
As far as the low/high heat thing - you’d be surprised, I think. If it’s in a covered pan, it’ll probably work. I’ve had plenty of experiments with strange cooking temps in exactly the situation you describe (holiday dinners) and vegetable dishes are very forgiving. You just need to keep an eye on things.
That said, I’d tend to take ZipperJJ’s suggestion and just cook it earlier in the day, perhaps cutting the cooking time by about 15 min so the beans didn’t get mushy. Assuming it’s in the fridge, throw it in the oven for the last 30 min of cooking or so, and once again, I’d be surprised if it doesn’t work out. And once again, just keep an eye on things.
The only reason that this wouldn’t work is if you were using canned or frozen beans. I’d worry they’d turn to mush. But I’d worry they’d turn to mush after 1 hour of cooking at 350, too, so I’m just hoping you’re using fresh green beans.
I meant to come back here and let you all know how it went. The beans were a hit.
I used two pounds of Green Beans, cut into one inch lengths.
Four Onions - Chopped fine.
Two Green Peppers - Peeled and cut into strips
One Stick of Butter.
In a buttered crock pot, I layered the beans, onions, and peppers. I put a couple of pats of butter between each layer and a couple of pats on top.
It was prepared the night before, and stored in the fridge overnight. The next day, I plugged in the crock pot, and cooked it on high for three hours.
The beans still had a nice snap to them, like they had been steamed. They were not mushy at all. The onions, peppers, and butter really added some nice flavor.
Of any of you is planning a large dinner, and want an easy vegetable side that you can fix and forget - this is for you.