Green Bean “Casserole”

This recipe is part of my “handheld Thanksgiving” project, an effort to create a full Thanksgiving meal that can be eaten with one hand and no utensils.

I tried here to recreate the essentials of a traditional green bean casserole, cooked with cream of mushroom soup and topped with crispy shallots. This recipe requires a food dehydrator, but could probably be accomplished with some store-bought ingredients and a low oven (a convection oven may work even better). Here, I make my own mushroom and shallot powders for the green bean flavoring.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds fresh green beans
• 1 pound fresh crimini mushrooms
• 0.5 pound fresh shallots
• 2 teaspoons nonfat milk powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• Olive or vegetable oil

Trim the green beans and cut in to roughly 1-2 inch pieces. Blanch the beans in boiling water for three minutes and then shock in an ice bath. Drain beans, and then press excess water out of them by folding them in a clean dish towel and pressing with your hands.

Slice mushrooms in to roughly 1/8″ slices. Peel shallots, halve, and slice into roughly 1/8″ inch slices. Lay out the shallots, mushrooms, and green beans in a food dehydrator and run the dehydrator at 125 degrees Fahrenheit until the vegetables are completely dry and crisp. Mushrooms and shallots should take about 8 hours, and the beans should take about 12 hours. The mushrooms and shallots should be completely crisp and easily snap by hand; the green beans should be easily crunchable but may still have some give to them. If the beans are still leathery, they will need more time in the dehydrator.

Place the mushrooms in a food processor and blitz until they turn into a fine powder, one to two minutes. Pass the mushroom through a fine mesh sieve to separate the powder from larger pieces. Repeat the process for the shallots.

In a small bowl, combine the milk powder, salt, two teaspoons mushroom powder, and one teaspoon shallot powder. In a large bowl, toss the dried green beans with just enough oil to lightly coat them (maybe half a teaspoon to a teaspoon – they should not feel greasy). Add the flavor mixture and toss to combine.