Casseroles Revisited...

Love it or leave it, most of us grew up eating some variation of casserole as part of the family dinner rotation. Often it was a recipe that Mom fine-tuned over the years to please every family member's taste buds.

Few dinner dishes evoke childhood memories as powerfully as the casserole. Remember macaroni mixed with ground beef and cheddar cheese? Or wide egg noodles with flakes of canned tuna, dotted with peas and topped with crushed potato chips? Then there was the 1950s-era fixture of many American dinner tables: creamy green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup, served with crunchy fried onions from a paper canister.

My mother made a casserole she called Marguerite’s Delight. Aunt Marguerite is my favorite aunt, who is a terrific cook ~ usually putting everything but the kitchen sink, into her culinary creations. This one consisted of elbow macaroni, ground beef, canned diced tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, fresh corn, fresh lima beans, salt, pepper and a crushed Ritz cracker topping. Whenever I've had a bad day at school or the stables, I wanted Mom to make Marguerite Delight.

During these difficult times, why not give ourselves permission to embrace our inner child by revisiting a dish from the past? Heck, most of us are already in a fetal position anyway from the depressing headlines.

The term casserole means saucepan in French, but a more modern translation should be "kitchen sink," as we Americans have experimented over the years with all varieties of starches, fillers, binders and toppings. From cornflakes cereal to trendy Japanese panko crumbs, the topping gives the casserole the necessary crunch to contrast with what is almost always a creamy interior.

The filler is usually pasta or rice, protein and veggies, all held together by a thickened binder of milk or cream — sometimes it's chicken or vegetable stock — and cheese both inside the filler and sprinkled along with the topping.

A traditional casserole is not for the faint of heart. Your Weight Watchers point system would probably self-destruct, if casseroles became part of your weekly diet.

Casseroles are popular legitimate reasons; despite all their caloric excess ~ They are easy to prepare; they can be frozen or refrigerated for days in advance; they are cheap to and feed a whole family for a few dollars; and they offer convenience from beginning to end. How many complete dinners can you heat and serve in the same dish?

But returning to a casserole classic doesn't necessarily mean reaching for the can of cream of mushroom soup that's been in your pantry since the Ford administration. There's no excuse not to sauté your own mushrooms or celery, stir in flour and fat, and then add milk to make your own creamy sauce. Trust me. It's easy, and it tastes better than anything you can find in a can.

Once you have the binder, you can experiment with the starch and protein. If you don't like egg noodles, try ziti or fusilli. If a recipe is too dry for your taste, add more liquid. If you don't eat tuna, substitute cubed cuts of chicken or the cheaper tail portion of fresh salmon that's been baked and flaked off with a fork. Choose fillings you know your family will eat.

For the topping, I have sampled a number of crusts: panko crumbs, homemade fried onions, canned fried onions, crushed potato chips and crushed cornflakes. All of them were delicious, but I thought there is just something about the old-school options of cornflakes, chips or canned onions that make a casserole more satisfying. I guess if I'm going to time-travel into my culinary past, I want the one ingredient that makes the dish authentically indulgent.

Another way to look at it is that I like my casseroles the way I like Miss Piggy ~ voluptuous and grotesquely attractive, dressed with something created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste; that takes it over the top. The combination of all of this is something immensely enjoyable — almost addictive. Like the famous actor turned boxer turned actor again, a good casserole always leaves me wanting more.

So let's bring comfort back. In these uncertain times, it's one of the few things that will make you loosen your belt, not tighten it.

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Here I give the cream of mushroom soup in the original 1950s version green bean casserole a makeover with sautéed fresh button mushrooms and a traditional white sauce that's easy to make. The sauce should coat the green beans, not drown them. For the topping, you can use crushed oyster crackers, saltines or the traditional fried onions if you prefer. But again, in giving this classic casserole a new look & taste, I developed a topping using Cornflakes.




My Creamy Green Bean Casserole

Ingredients:
1 pound green beans, trimmed, cut in half
1 tablespoon butter
12 ounces white mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
2 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 sprig fresh thyme
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups milk, preferably whole
1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar or Swiss)
~ I used Gruyère

Cornflake Topping:
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1½ cups cornflakes cereal (placed in a zip-lock bag and crushed by hand)
½ cup shredded cheese (use same kind as in main recipe)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and spray an 8-by-8-inch casserole dish with nonstick spray.

In a large pot of boiling water, cook green beans until firm but tender to the bite, about 5 minutes. Immerse green beans in a large bowl of ice water or run under cold tap water for 2 minutes to preserve color. Allow to drain in colander.

In a large deep skillet over medium high heat, add butter and mushrooms. Stir occasionally until water cooks out of mushrooms, about 5 minutes.

Add flour, salt, pepper, thyme and garlic and stir in milk until consistency is thick and uniform. Turn off heat.

Add cheese and green beans. Mix thoroughly and then pour contents into the casserole dish.

To make topping, pour melted butter over crushed cornflakes in a bowl. Mix in cheese. Spread evenly over the top of the casserole.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until topping is golden brown.


Makes 6 to 8 servings

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George’s notes:

• Cooking in earthenware containers has always been common in most nations, but the idea of casserole cooking as a one-dish meal became popular in America in the twentieth century, especially in the 1950s when new forms of lightweight metal and glassware appeared on the market.
• Early 18th century casserole recipes consisted of rice that was pounded, pressed, and filled with a savory mixture of meats such as chicken or sweetbreads.