Blistered Green Beans With Crispy Fried Shallots

Sides

My Thoughts

I like green beans, but I don't like green bean casserole. I don't care if it's a staple of Thanksgiving tables everywhere (okay, I did not grow up eating it - ever). It's just sad, bland, waste of space that could be used for something else. This is not a casserole, not even close. This a is a bright and crunchy and light with fresh green beans and crispy fried shallots on top.

The How To Do It

  1. Break the stem off of each bean pod. You can break the tip off as well, but I don't find it annoying so I leave it on. The stem can be really unpleasant to chew through/swallow.
  2. In a medium or large mixing bowl, combine the beans, olive oil, and garlic, salt, and pepper.
  3. Remove the skin from a small-to-medium shallot and slice it as thinly as possible and then cut each round in half so that you have crescent-moon shaped pieces and place them in a bowl filled with buttermilk.
  4. In a small sauce pan, heat canola or peanut oil to 350°-375° F. I use a deep frying/candy thermometer to make sure the the temp is right. You can also heat the oil for a bit and then through in a "tester" piece of shallot and see if it starts to sizzle and bubble.
  5. While the oil is coming up to temp, the flour, cornmeal, granulated garlic, granulated onion, salt, and pepper together in a bowl.
  6. Next, take the shallots out of the buttermilk and toss them in the flour and cornmeal mixture. Make sure they are coated completely.
  7. Once the oil is hot enough, start adding the shallots to the oil and fry them until they are golden brown. This should take about 5-minutes. You just want them to be hot all the way through and the skin to be blistered, but you don't want them to get soft.
  8. Remove them, using a spider or a large slotted spoon, to a plate lined with paper towels to drain.
  9. Now, heat a medium sized cast iron skillet until the oil is very hot/almost smoking. Add the green beans and saute until they start to get the skin starts to blister and the beans are heated through. This should take roughly 1-2 minutes but could take as long as 5 minutes depending on how hot the skillet actually was when you added everything to it. Basically, cook until they start to look blistered and keep the contents moving in the skillet until that happens.
  10. Once the green beans are finished, either portion them out on plates with a few of the fried shallots on each one, or place them all on a platter with the shallots on top.

Ingredients

Blistered Green Beans With Cornmeal Fried Shallots
12 ozs
green beans
1 sml
shallot
1 clove
garlic
½ cup
corn meal
½ cup
all purpose flour
1 tsp
granulated garlic
1 tsp
onion powder
2 tbsp
olive oil
3 cups
canola oil
*you'll need enough to cover the shallots
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