The Slapdash Cook

I was not raised eating green bean casserole on Thanksgiving. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that my mom has a problem with the idea of cooking by mixing canned goods together. I certainly do. But I had some green bean cassrole last year and discoverd that I actually liked it. I have a soft spot for mushrooms and green beans (though typically I prefer for them not to taste like salted mush). So I thought I’d be very clever and try to make a fresher, no-cans version, only to discover that multiple people across the foodieverse have already done it, including Cook’s Illustrated and probably every fancy American restaurant offering a Thanksgiving menu. Too bad; I did it again.

Sadly, the result was not as successful as I hoped. This wasn’t an outright failure, but it needs to be tweaked for maximum tastiness. In particular, it’s difficult to replace canned fried onions, because no food like that exists in nature. I ended up caramelizing some onions, which was great but not remotely crunchy. And I think the crunch is what people like. I’d also double the amount of onions I actually did use and cut back on the milk, perhaps replacing some with white wine or veggie broth.

This version of the casserole takes kind of a lot of work, at least compared to dumping cans into a dish, but you can make it ahead, and in stages if necessary.

Can-free green bean casserole
~1 lb fresh green beans, or quality frozen if that’s how you wanna roll
one 10-oz (or whatever) package fresh button or cremini mushrooms
1-2 tablespoons butter or olive oil. I used butter because I was, after all, trying to recreate the taste of packaged foods.
One large onion, sliced into half-moons or rings
1/2 cup milk, any fatness level. I used skim. I also used lots more milk, but the result was too sweet.
1/2 cup dry white wine or veggie broth, or some combination thereof. I actually used mirin, and far less of it, but only because we were out of $2 Chuck.
4-5 fresh thyme spigs, or one big multi-branched one. Replace with maybe 1/2 tsp dried?
(I didn’t use rosemary or a bay leaf, but either would probably improve things.)
A generous amount of bread crumbs, panko or something else crunchy. Seriously, at least 1/2 cup.
1 tb flour
salt — 1/2 tsp, maybe? Err on the side of caution if you’re using a salty veggie broth.
pepper to taste, but my taste is lots

1. Slice the onion thinly and caramelize it in one tablespoon of butter. I, of course, used my slow cooker.

2. If you’re using fresh green beans, wash, trim and cut then into a forkable size, then steam until crisp-tender. If you’re using frozen, it probably wouldn’t hurt to let them defrost in a strainer to get rid of the extra liquids, but there’s no need to bother actually cooking them first.

3. Saute diced onions in maybe another 1/2 to 1 tablespoon butter. Add sliced mushrooms, thyme and any other herbs when the onions are soft, and keep sauteeing until they’ve released a lot of liquid. I find I have better luck at retaining the liquid when I use the slow cooker or a pot with a lid. (This would also help release the herbs better, I think.) Best to avoid very high temperatures on the stovetop, especially if you’re using butter.

3.5 NOTE: If you have dried mushrooms and extra time, consider boiling the wine/broth and milk and soaking the dried mushrooms and spices in them. This seems like it would improve the flavor. Discard the dried mushrooms once you’ve got the good stuff out of them. Seems like porcini would work better here than shiitake, but dried shiitake are much cheaper if you get them at 99 Ranch Market!

4. When the liquids are released, add your wine/broth, milk, salt and pepper. Whisk in the one tablespoon of flour until thoroughly combined. The flour will thicken it, but you have to put the heat on medium and whisk or stir constantly until it thickens so it doesn’t burn. I used mostly milk in this step and the result was disturbingly sweet, BTW.

5. If you’re gonna bake it now, preheat the oven to 375ish. When the sauce is thickened, fish out the thyme sprigs and bay leaf and put it in a casserole dish. I think mine is 8″in diameter. Mix well with the (cooked) green beans. At this point, you could stick it in the fridge until it’s time to bake, perhaps topping it with the caramelized onions but NOT the bread crumbs because they’re likely to get soggy. But I thought I’d try for crunchy by cooking bread crumbs in butter, then stirring the caramelized onions into that. This didn’t work for crunchiness, possibly because I was using fairly fine challah crumbs left over from Rosh Hashanah. Coarse cracker crumbs might work and wouldn’t have to be cooked in butter.

6. Bake, uncovered, at 375 until the liquid has thickened up some more and the top and sides get nice and baked-looking.

Despite the many flaws of this casserole, J. liked it. So I bet a less flawed version would be even more popular!