My sister hosts our Thanksgiving feast every year….we all contribute our culinary treats… mine this year is the green bean casserole … this year I wanted to add some different touches to the sauce.  A few months ago when working on a Gumbo recipe I read that if you toast the flour in a dry skillet to the desired color you add a nuttiness and deep color to the flavor of the flour.  I thought aha! that method might be perfect for the additional layer of flavor I wanted these beans to have. So I used a combination of recipes one from Smitten Kitchen and the other from Americas Test Kitchen,  morphed it with the toasted flour and our Porcini Mushroom Sous Salt and voila we had our recipe.

ingredients

  • 6 good sized shallots, sliced thin
  • 1/4 c all purpose flour (this is for the onion prep)
  • 2 T panko
  • 1/2 t Porcini Mushroom Sous Salt
  • Pepper to taste
  • Grape seed oil for frying the shallots

 

  • 3 T butter
  • 1 lb of mushrooms, this year I used a combination for the visual
  • nutmeg…just a grate or two
  • 1 t Sous Salt Porcini Mushroom
  • Pepper to taste
  • 2 cloves of garlic, grated
  • 3 T toasted flour for the mushroom sauce
  • 1/2 c white wine
  • 1 1/2 c chicken stock
  • 1 1/2 c heavy cream
  • 1 – 1  1/2 lbs of green beans
  • 4 sprigs of fresh thyme

directions

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Trim your beans but cutting the tips off and halving them if you are using large beans. If you are using the smaller haricot vert they just need to have the tips trimmed.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the beans. 5 minutes for large beans, 2 – 3 minutes for haricot vert. Drop them in an ice bath to stop the cooking. When they are cool drain and dry them on paper towels. They can just sit and wait now.

For the crispy onions, combine the all purpose flour, panko, salt and pepper in a bowl. Toss the onions in the flour and fry them in a heavy skillet with the grape seed oil until lightly golden brown.  Do this in batches so the onions don’t sweat and can develop a light golden crust. Drain them on a paper towel. Finish the batches and let them sit.

Now for the sauce….over medium heat melt the 3 T of butter in the bottom of a skillet. Add your assortment of mushrooms just make sure that they are about the same size when you brown them. Don’t toss them around too much let them simmer in the butter so they can brown a bit…and whatever you do don’t salt them yet.  This should take about 4 minutes.  Once they have given up their liquid add the garlic by grating it into the skillet. Add the Sous Salt, Pepper and thyme now too. Let this marry for 30 seconds.  Now sprinkle in the toasted flour covering the mushrooms.

Add the white wine and scrape up any little brown bits that have adhered to the skillet.  Let it come to a bubble and add the chicken stock, simmer for 2 minutes then add the cream. Cook until it thickens about 5 minutes stirring frequently.

Add the beans to the sauce, coating all the little green gems. Sprinkle the shallots on top and bake for 20 minutes until hot and bubbly.