Extra Helpings: Friendsgiving, Part II - Casserole

In an unusual twist, this will actually be my second Extra Helpings posting. I had started talking about my Friendsgiving experience in a prior post and since this is the week of Thanksgiving, I wanted to make sure I got in both the recipes for the Red and Black bread as well as the other dish that I brought to the dinner, Green Bean Casserole. What?!?! After I prattle on endlessly about avoiding processed foods and buying locally and seasonally and I have the NERVE to bring that bastion of convenience and overly salted badness known as GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE?

Calm down, gentle reader, you should know me better by now. I decided many years ago to take that unholy trinity of canned string beans, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup and French Fried onion bits and reinvent it. This isn't simply dressing up the old stand-by with a few fresh herbs; this is a complete overhaul, Green Bean Casserole version 2.0 if you will. The first year I brought this dish to Thanksgiving dinner, my mother was so convinced that no one would like my "gourmet" version that she also fixed the original. Suffice it to say that my grandmother, longtime believer in the philosophy of Campbell's cans of processed goodness, actually asked me for the recipe. I don't think she would ever make it herself, but hey, the gesture of her asking was compliment enough.

Before we get started, I will warn you that this is not a "shortcut" kind of a recipe. When I make this dish by myself (which is 99% of the time), it usually takes me about 2 to 2 1/2 hours to go from prepping the ingredients to pouring it into the casserole dish. That being said, you can make the bean and mushroom base and keep it in the fridge for up to 2 days before you bake it for dinner, so you can plan ahead. Plus, I would say that half of the time for this dish is in the prep work, so if you can get others to help out with trimming the beans and cutting the shallots and garlic, you'll cut your time down significantly.

This recipe is for a 13" x 9" Pyrex casserole dish. I've also baked this in a 8" x 8" casserole dish and it worked well, too. You end up using about a 1/3 less of each item for the smaller dish.

You start out by getting 2 1/4 pounds of fresh green beans and weeding out the undesirables, trimming the ends off the good beans and then cutting each bean into bite-sized portions:


This alone is probably the most time-consuming part of the recipe. You can leave the beans longer if you want to (I did this the first time I made it), however, they don't serve well with a spoon and people end up having to cut them before eating them anyway. Here was a shot of my fully trimmed and ready to go beans:


After trimming up the beans, you need to blanch them. Start by bringing a large pot of water to the boil:


Only after the water reaches the boil do you want to throw in about 1/2 cup of salt into the water. You'll know that your water is salty enough when you (carefully) taste it. It should taste salty, but not powerfully so. You want to blanch your beans in batches, the number of batches really depends on the amount of water you have to cook them in. In my case, two batches was plenty. If your pot were smaller, there is nothing wrong with doing three, four, or more batches. After you add your batch of beans, place the lid on and start the timer for three minutes. After about thirty seconds, remove the lid and stir the beans so that they are all submerged. After exactly three minutes, remove the beans with a metal spider or a slotted spoon into a bowl of cold water with ice cubes:


This will stop the cooking process of the beans and lock in that gorgeous green color. Once the beans have been shocked, they can happily hang out in this bowl until you've processed all of your batches. Add ice cubes as necessary to keep the water cool. Make sure you bring the water in your pot back to the boil before adding the next batch. There will be no need to add additional salt between batches. Once all of your beans have been blanched and shocked, drain them in a colander and spread them out onto either multiple layers of paper towels or on tea towels. You want to get as much water off the surface of the beans as you can or else it could water down the bechamel sauce we will be making later in the recipe.

Hooray, the first (and most time consuming) step has now been completed!

The next step is to make the mushroom bechamel sauce that we will toss with the blanched green beans. First, finely mince three medium shallots and nine cloves of garlic:


I normally toss a little bit of olive oil in with each and mix with a spoon in order to help prevent oxidation while we prep the other ingredients.

Next up are three kinds of mushrooms. The first two, button and shiitake, are fresh. Most supermarkets now carry fresh shiitake mushrooms, so these shouldn't be too hard to find. You could always substitute the same amount of another kind of common mushroom, like cremini, if you can't find the shiitake. The third kind of mushroom required will be dried porcini. It is definitely the most expensive of the three per ounce, but because of its intense flavor, you'll only need one ounce.


Here we have 14 ounces of fresh button mushrooms, 8 ounces of fresh shiitake mushrooms (with stems) and 1 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms from Heather's Heat and Flavor in Hudson, OH. Heather's has some of the best dried porcini mushrooms I have ever come across. Sadly, as the clerk who helped me earlier in the week informed me, these aren't a big seller and until the demand improves, once the two Heather's locations run out of these mushrooms, they won't be refilling their inventory anytime soon.

To begin processing the mushrooms, bring about 2 cups of water to a rapid boil on the stovetop. Turn off the burner, add the entire ounce of mushrooms and stir with a spoon to make sure that all the mushrooms have been moistened and submerged. This will need to steep for about twenty minutes to fully hydrate the mushrooms, so you might want to do this step while you are prepping your green beans during the first part of this recipe:


Every five minutes or so, just give this a casual stir. For the button mushrooms, I simply wiped any dirt off the caps and sliced them in about 1/4" slices. The shiitake mushrooms must be de-stemmed and then have their caps cut into 2, 4 or 6 pieces, depending on how big the cap is. They should be roughly the same size as the sliced button mushrooms. Once the porcini mushrooms have been reconstituted, strain and reserve the soaking liquid. Press on the porcini to push out any extra moisture and give them a rough chop on your cutting board. Here was a shot of the prepped mushrooms and the porcini soaking liqueur:


In the same pot (which was simply rinsed out) in which you blanched the green beans, put it over a medium to medium-high heat, add three or four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and add in all of the shallots and garlic:


Add salt and freshly cracked pepper and begin stirring the mixture. You want it to saute until the shallots are translucent, but make sure not to burn the garlic. If you do, toss this mixture and start again; there is no way to recover if the garlic gets burned. After maybe 90 seconds sauting in the pan, add the button mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms, another glug or two of olive oil and another round of salt and pepper:


Continue to stir the mushrooms until they start to exude some of their water and begin to shrink. Once this begins to happen, add in the reconstituted porcini, reseason as necessary and cook until the mushrooms are nicely cooked and there is no extra moisture in the pan. At this point, transfer the cooked mushrooms to a separate bowl:


The next step is to make the bechamel sauce for the mushrooms. The ingredients required are:


Fresh thyme sprigs, half a stick of unsalted butter (salted would work okay, too), about 2 cups of 2% milk, the reserved porcini soaking liquid, and 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour. The first step is to make a roux. Place the mushroom-free (but not cleaned) pot back on the burner and add the four tablespoons of butter. Once the butter has melted and is bubbling, add in the flour. This all moves pretty fast at this point, so no distractions ... no phone calls, no kids, no pets. Once you've added the flour, you need to use a whisk to constantly stir the flour and butter. As you whisk, you will liberate the little bits off the bottom of the pot and they will incorporate into the roux, turning it darker and darker. This is perfectly normal.

After cooking the roux for about two minutes, the flour taste will be gone and we can start adding the liquid. We are looking to add about three cups total liquid to our cooked roux. Whisking with one hand, start by adding the porcini liquid. Add as much as you can without adding any of the little mushroom sediment that has now settled on the bottom of your container. As you begin to add the liquid, it will start to bubble and look like it has seized up. Keep adding liquid and whisking. Once the porcini liquid is used up, move to the 2% milk. Add between 1 1/2 - 2 cups, depending on how much porcini liquid you added, constantly whisking. At this point, the sauce will not look thick enough. Add your first round of seasoning (salt and pepper) and between 6-8 sprigs of fresh thyme. Now, continue to whisk until the liquid comes to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, turn down the burner to a simmer and whisk on and off for about 5-10 more minutes.


At this point, the sauce will be nice and thick (gravy-esque), the thyme sprigs will have released all of their leaves, and the sauce should have a smooth, shiny appearance to it. Pull out the thyme sprigs, adjust the seasoning one last time, and add your cooked mushrooms back into the sauce. Of the two, the mushroom sauce should be slightly more aggressively seasoned than the green beans. Even though we salted the blanching water for the green beans, they will still require additional seasoning to be perfect. Once the mushrooms have been returned, add in your drained, blanched beans and mix to coat:


At this point, make a final tasting. Try and get both a mushroom and a bean on the same bite. One should be more aggressively salted, the other a bit on the weak side. But as you chew them together, you should get a feeling for the "average" salt level. As this mixture sits overnight, the salt levels of each component will average out. Once you are happy with the final seasoning, take this pot off heat and continue to stir every couple of minutes to release the heat. Once is it has cooled to a little bit above room temperature, scrape into your 9" x 13" casserole dish and press into an even layer. Cover with plastic wrap, foil, or the plastic lid and place in the refrigerator overnight.

The third and final component of our Green Bean Casserole version 2.0 is the topping. Knowing that when I reinvented this dish I needed to stick with the crispy topping for it to be truly accepted, I decided to do a fresh bread crumb and olive oil mixture that would turn golden brown as the casserole baked away in the oven. To make the topping you'll need your food processor, six slices of your favorite whole wheat bread, about one cup of freshly grated Parmegiano Reggiano, fresh thyme and rosemary, and extra virgin olive oil:


I stripped enough rosemary and thyme to taste (probably about 1/4 cup of each), place them in the food processor with the bread torn up into smaller pieces and then essentially whizzed the heck out of it until every was chopped very fine. You then take this mixture and put it into a bowl and add the grated cheese. I'm assuming, gentle reader, that if you've decided to make the recipe using my directions up to this point, you won't do yourself a great disservice and use the stuff that comes in the "green" can that you keep in the fridge. One cup of grated cheese is an approximation, use more or less to your taste. I usually add enough cheese so that after it is incorporated into the bread crumbs, I can still see the cheese bits throughout the bread. At this point, you can stop, cover the bowl and place it aside for later use if you aren't ready for it right away.

To finish the topping, you need to stir in (with a spoon) enough extra virgin olive oil so that the entire mixture looks "moist." Enough so that as you stir the mixture, the bread crumbs form little balls that break up easily if you prod them with the spoon. Although this shot is a little blurry, this is just the right amount:


At this point, take the casserole out of the fridge, generously top it with the bread crumb mixture and place in a 350 degree oven for about 35-40 minutes. You'll know it's ready when the mushroom bechamel sauce is nice and bubbly and the topping is golden brown. What happens if you get bubbly before you get brown? Stick the casserole underneath the broiler for 20-30 seconds until the bread crumbs brown up nicely. Pay attention though as they will brown very quickly.

I will say this about the finished casserole: Right out of the oven it will be rocket hot and probably not edible for a good 10-15 minutes without burning your mouth, so prepare on letting it sit a little bit before diving in. Here was a shot of the finished product that we served at the Friendsgiving dinner:


And a shot of my portion on my plate (along with all of the other yummy goodies):


On this plate was some of Kathy's very tender and juicy turkey, Jane's cornbread dressing, wonderfully tasty whipped potatoes and an artichoke salads with capers that was simply delightful. There were lots of side dishes and as with the regular holiday of Thanksgiving, everyone ate until they were too stuffed to move and we had TONS of food left over. I guess this is what happens when foodies cook for themselves. However, everyone had room for the most amazing dessert selections. Between the ricotta cookies, cheesecake bites, fudge bites, walnut chocolate tarte, two kinds of pumpkin pie and lemon ricotta cake, we were in full-on food coma heaven. Four and a half-hours after arriving and eating non-stop, I and a few of the other guests came to the sad realization that Friendsgiving was over for another year, packed up our leftovers and headed out into the crisp November air.

While Thanksgiving is a time for me to reflect and be thankful for having a job (you know, the one that affords me the opportunity to be able to pay all those restaurant checks), a supportive family, and so many good things in my life, Friendsgiving now allows me to be thankful for my newly acquired Akron foodie family as well. That they are serious, irreverent, funny, and light-hearted all at the same time makes for a fantastic way to spend five hours of your life, eating, drinking, and laughing until your sides hurt.

Here's a tear sheet of the ingredients you'll need:

Green Bean Casserole version 2.0
2 1/4 pounds fresh green beans
14 ounces button mushrooms
8 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
3 medium shallots
9 cloves garlic (1 head should suffice)
Fresh thyme
2 cups 2% (or higher) milk
1/4 cup All Purpose flour
1/2 stick (4 tbsp) unsalted butter
Extra virgin olive oil for sauteing
Salt
Pepper

For the topping you'll need:
6 slices of whole wheat bread
1 cup of grated Parmegiano Reggiano
Fresh thyme
Fresh rosemary
Extra virgin olive oil

Extra Helpings: Friendsgiving, Part I - Bread

Several weeks ago, I was attending the Jane Snow book reading and signing at the Akron Public Library with another blogger friend of mine, Kathy. As it turned out, several of the dinner guests that had attended Jane's Julie and Julia party I went to in mid-August were also there. After Jane's talk, while waiting in line for an autograph, several of them approached me and we spent a few minutes catching up on what has happened over the last two months since we had last seen each other. As it turned out, one of the dinner guests (a different Kathy than the one I attended the talk) has been hosting an annual pre-Thanksgiving gathering at her house for several years now called "Friendsgiving." Essentially a way to encourage even more food and fellowship during the month of November, she told me that she had been meaning to contact me in order to issue me an invitation.

Like most Thanksgiving celebrations, our hostess would be providing the turkey and some of the side dishes. Each guest was encouraged to bring whatever they thought would make the meal complete. After bringing that wonderful French bread and brioche to the Julie and Julia party, I knew I wouldn't be able to get away without bringing some type of bread. I decided to go with a bread that I first learned about from friend and teacher Kathy Lehr (I know, I know, gentle reader, a THIRD Kathy in this story). Kathy is the bread instructor at the Western Reserve School of Cooking in Hudson, Ohio. I took several of Kathy's single-day bread classes before committing to the week long professional class she does twice a year in the summer.

Before Kathy's class, I would say that I had a good understanding of the science of bread. What Kathy taught me was the zen-like interaction one must have in order to roll with the punches. Because bread is a living organism, you can't simply rely on the written recipe to get perfect bread time after time. To get that perfect loaf of bread you have to touch the dough, smell the dough and look at the dough. It was under her tutelage that I finally realized that I could stop worrying so much about all the facts and still get great bread.

One of the recipes that she taught us in her week-long class was her recipe for Roasted Red Pepper and Black Peppercorn bread. Although I have changed the metrics to favor weight rather than volume, the recipe is the same one that she provided me years ago. She has graciously allowed me to reprint it here on the blog so that I can share it with all of you. Catherine St. John, owner of the Western Reserve School of Cooking, also felt that this would be an excellent bread for the holidays and encouraged me to contact Kathy so that I might have all the approvals I needed in order to reprint her recipe here on the blog.

The first step is to get 2 large or 3 medium sized red peppers:


Make sure that the skin is nice and tight (wrinkles = oldness). You want to cut the tops off of the peppers, remove any of the white ribs and seeds, and fill each pepper up with two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil:


Now using your hands, roll the peppers around so that the oil completely coats the inside of the pepper. Pour the remaining oil out onto your hands and completely coat the outside as well. Place the now coated peppers in either a pie plate or a Pyrex baking dish and place into a pre-heated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven. After 30 minutes, pull the dish out and add a little more olive oil to each pepper, turning the peppers to coat in the additional olive oil. At this point they will have begun to start to wilt. If the peppers have started to blister on the bottom, rotate them so that an unblistered side is now on the bottom. Roast for another 30 minutes.

Pull the pepper out of the oven and place in a small glass or plastic bowl just large enough to hold the peppers. Cover tight with plastic wrap:


The residual heat from the peppers will be trapped underneath the plastic wrap and will help to steam the skins loose from the flesh. After about 10-15 minutes, remove the plastic wrap and using your fingers and a sharp pairing knife, skin each pepper. Don't worry if the pepper flesh rips or falls apart; we'll be dicing the peppers up in the end anyway. DON'T throw away any extra oil or pepper juice. You'll need it for the bread recipe. Once the peppers are peeled, return them to the bowl with the now lovely smelling roasted red pepper olive oil you just made, cover them with plastic and store them in the fridge overnight. Fortunately, this step can be done several days in advance.

To make the dough, we first need to get our mise en place ready. Here are the roasted red peppers, the olive oil, and the black peppercorns:


You'll need to finely dice the roasted red peppers and place in one dish. Try and strain as much of the oil from the peppers as you can. In a second dish, we'll need 56 grams (or 4 tablespoons) of the roasted red pepper olive oil. If you don't have enough, make up the difference in extra virgin olive oil. For the black peppercorns, you'll need 8 grams of whole black peppercorns (or 1 1/2 tablespoons already cracked peppercorns). When I first started making this recipe, I used to actually spend 20 minutes freshly cracking all the pepper required. Since I bought a mortar and pestle, I find it much easier to simply weigh out 8 grams, place it in the mortar and voila! In about five minutes I have nicely ground and very aromatic pepper.

I placed the ground peppercorn, along with 20 grams of fine sea salt (not Kosher) and 3 grams (or 1 tablespoon) of dried basil on a plate:


You could use fresh basil in place of dried, but basil is one of the few dried herbs that really works well, so I always just opt for the convenience of it.

Finally, in the KitchenAid mixing bowl I have placed 700 grams of bread flour, 300 grams of whole wheat flour, and 7 grams of instant yeast (which would be 9 grams of actively dried yeast or 20 grams of fresh cake yeast). Also, to the right of the bowl is 450 grams of room temperature water:


The original recipe actually called for 500 grams of water; however, the unknown in this recipe is the amount of water in the red peppers. It's always easier to add more water if you need it.

The first step is to attach the bowl to the stand mixer, insert the dough hook, and begin combining the flours and yeast on the lowest speed:


After the flours and yeast are mixed, add the black pepper, the dried basil, all of the olive oil and three-quarters of the water you have already measured out. Continue to mix on the lowest speed until you see the water absorbed by the flour:


At this point, add all of the roasted red peppers and continue to mix on lowest speed:


Now you should only be left with two remaining ingredients, water and salt. I ended up adding all 450 grams of water in my batch and then just a little bit more. The trick is that you want the dough to be fully hydrated, but not so much that it becomes a sticky mess. After adding all 450 grams of water, the bottom of my mixing bowl looked like this:


See just the bit of dry flour at the bottom? To an inexperienced bread maker, this is the point where you'd start to freak out and add too much water. It was at this point I turned the mixer onto the second lowest setting (which would be '2' on my KitchenAid) and added probably about another 15-20 grams of additional water, very slowly. Within a minute, the dough became properly hydrated. How could I tell? Stop the machine and touch the dough. Is it tacky and not sticky? Perfect! Using the mixer, knead the dough for between 4-5 minutes on speed 2. At this point slowly add the salt in a stream and knead for another minute.

The dough should clean the sides of the bowl, the salt should be thoroughly incorporated, and the surface of the dough will be moist without sticking to either the bowl or you:


Using either your hands or a flexible plastic bowl scraper, shape the dough into a nice round ball, place in the bottom of your bowl (or other appropriate vessel), cover with either a lid or plastic wrap, cover with a tea towel and set it someplace warm (I usually set in on the top of my refrigerator as warm air rises). Depending on the warmth of your room, the first rise can take anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. Today mine took 1 hour 30 minutes. At this point you want to use the flexible bowl scraper to go around the bowl and literally pull the edges into the center. This will not only deflate the dough, but also help to redistribute the yeast and the sugars available for the yeast to feed on. Recover with plastic and the towel and place it back into the warm spot.

The second rise normally takes just slightly over half the time of the original rise. I decided to let mine go for 1 hour. At that point, I used my plastic scraper to gently scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto a floured work surface. Use only as much flour as required; at this point, less flour is better. Use a metal bench scraper (or a sharp knife) to divide the dough into three equal portions. A kitchen scale works very well to make sure you have three even loaves. At this point, you could decide to make whatever shape you wanted for the bread. Today I choose boules. After shaping the boules, I placed them seam-side up on a floured side towel:


As soon as you get your boules shaped and covered, turn your oven on to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Place your pizza stone or inverted half-sheet pan in the center of the oven with a right-side-up sheet pan (anything with a lip) on the rack on the bottom of the oven. Once the boules are fully proofed, flip them seam-side down onto a bread peel and slide them onto the stone/pan (two in each back corner and one in the middle front). Throw 1/4 cup water into the pan at the bottom of the oven being careful not to spill it. Close the oven door and bake for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes. You want the internal temperature of each loaf to reach 195-200 degrees Fahrenheit when read with an instant read thermometer.

At this point, use the peel to remove the loaves from the oven and place on a cooling rack:


Let them cool COMPLETELY! I know it's tempting to cut into them when they are still warm, but there is still much chemically going on inside the loaves as they cool. Cut into them too soon and the interior texture will be gummy and unappetizing.

During Friendsgiving, we enjoyed the bread two ways. First, I cut up and served some bread slices for the appetizer table. Paired with a little fresh Brie or some olive oil or hummos, this was a wonderful way to enjoy the bread. Second, I prepared two bread baskets that sat at either end of the table:


Spread with just a little bit of softened butter, the sweet from the roasted red peppers and the spiciness from the freshly cracked black peppercorns plays so well on the palate. Even if you don't spread anything on the bread, it has a fantastic flavor profile all on its own. The nice thing about this bread is that it can also be made ahead of time, by weeks or months, and frozen. To freeze, wrap each completely cooled loaf (cool at least three-four hours) in a double layer of plastic wrap and place each loaf into a freezer-safe bag. To use, simple take the still wrapped loaves out of the freezer and place onto the counter until completely thawed. You can re-crisp the loaves (or simply warm them up) by placing them in a 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes before slicing. I would not try and thaw them in the microwave. When I thaw, I usually take them out of the freezer the morning I need them and they are usually fine for dinner the same day.

Even if you decide not to give this delicious bread a try for your upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I urge you to take the time and give this recipe a try sometime soon. You won't be sorry you did.

Here's a tear sheet of the ingredients you'll need:

Roasted Red Pepper and Black Peppercorn Bread
700 grams Bread Flour
300 grams Whole Wheat Flour
7 grams Instant yeast / 9 grams Actively Dried yeast / 20 grams Fresh Cake yeast
20 grams fine sea salt
56 grams Roasted Pepper Oil / Extra Virgin olive oil
450-500 grams Water, room temperature
2 large or 3 medium Red Peppers, roasted
8 grams whole black peppercorns
3 grams dried basil