Green Bean Casserole

Every year at Thanksgiving, my mom prepares a TON of good food (15 dishes, at least) but green bean casserole is definitely not on that list. Sauteed green beans with garlic might make an appearance once in a while, but green bean casserole is a little too…traditional…for us. I spoke with my friend, Blake, about preparing a Thanksgiving dinner and he insisted that green bean casserole HAD to be on the table. I didn’t want to disappoint, so I found a recipe for green bean casserole and made it. The recipe was adapted from Cooks Illustrated and really easy to follow – it was a real crowd pleaser (except Joe, who thought it wasn’t seasoned enough).

Ingredients:
Beans
1 lb green beans, cut into bite sized pieces

Mushrooms and Sauce
8 ounces baby portabella mushrooms (I had a mixture of white mushrooms, large portabella mushrooms, and baby portabella, so the recipe is definitely flexible)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon fresh garlic, minced
Kosher salt to taste
Fresh pepper to taste
1 tablespoon flour
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon dry sherry (I didn’t use any)
3/4 cup heavy cream
Salt & pepper to taste

Topping
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 can of French fried onions
Breadcrumbs

First, boil a pot of water and dump in all of the green beans into boiling water. Cook the beans for about 4 minutes and then drain the beans and plunge the beans into ice water (to stop the cooking). Make sure you dry the green beans and put them aside. Chris was responsible for drying the beans while I made the mushroom sauce and took his responsibility really seriously. The beans were REALLY dry!

Second, put the butter, garlic, and mushrooms into a pot and let the mushrooms cook through (about 5 minutes):

Add the flour to the mushrooms:

Add chicken broth and cream to the mushrooms and bring to a simmer:

Simmer the sauce until it thickens, about 5 minutes – it should look like this:

After the sauce has thickened, add the green beans (that have been thoroughly dried):

I refrigerated the casserole until Saturday and then brought it out to room temperature while I finished making the topping. For the topping, I just mixed the breadcrumbs and butter together (you can do it in a food processor, but I just used my fingers) and then mixed it with the French onion topping. Sprinkle the topping over the casserole and bake for about 30 minutes (or until it bubbles). I don’t have any final pictures, but it looked really pretty!

Next up: cornbread stuffing!