The following recipe is adapted from the November 2011 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. If you want to try their original recipe, you can find it here. For my adaptation, I followed their directions closely, but changed the ingredients as I found the original recipe was a little sour/bitter. Nothing that tripling the amount of sugar couldn’t fix! 🙂 I picked this recipe, because I wanted to try a lighter green veggie recipe this year. Normally whatever green vegetable we serve at Thanksgiving is soaked in cream (think: creamed spinach) or high in fat (think: asparagus wrapped in bacon). I was kind of shocked by how much dressing was coating the green beans when I followed the recipe amounts, but was very pleased that the green beans were still crispy and not soaked in dressing, despite sitting in our warming oven for 1.5 hours before dinner was served. If I were to make this recipe again, I would likely halve the amount of dressing used so the green bean flavor could come through even more. The recipe below is exactly what I made on Thursday.
Green Beans with Miso & Almonds
Adapted from Bon Appetit, November 2011 Issue
Ingredients
2 1/2 lb. fresh green beans (ends trimmed or snapped off)
kosher salt
1/4 cup white miso (fermented soybean paste)
3 tbsp. thinly sliced scallions, dark green parts only, divided
3 tbsp. unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tbsp. mustard powder mixed with 1 tbsp. water (Note: BA recommends 2 tbsp. Japanese prepared hot mustard (not wasabi) and this is the alternative)
2 tbsp. olive oil
3-4 tbsp. sugar, to taste
1/4 cup, sliced almonds, toasted
Directions
1. Boil a medium sized pot of salted water. When the water is boiling, toss in the green beans and cook until crisp-tender (about 7-8 minutes).
2. Drain green beans and transfer to a large bowl of ice water to cool. (Note: This is what keeps the green beans crispy – don’t skip this step!)
3. In a small bowl, whisk miso, 2 tbsp. scallions, vinegar, mustard (and water), oil and sugar. Season dressing to taste with salt.
4. Place green beans in a serving bowl. Pour dressing over; toss to coat.
5. Pre-heat oven to 350 degree. On a baking sheet, lay out flat sliced almonds and toast until they are lightly browned. This should take about 15 minutes.
6. Right before serving, garnish dish with toasted almonds and remaining 1 tbsp. scallions. Serve warm or at room temperature (I prefer warm).
Note: After completing step 4 above, I put the green beans in our warming oven for 1.5 hours until the turkey was ready. I did steps 5-6 immediately before we sat down to eat.
Here is a close up of the finished product:
Sweet Southern Comfort 