This casserole remains a classic
I love making, and remaking, tortilla de Espana until it resembles the melt-in-your-mouth egg-potato pie my husband has enjoyed since he was a college exchange student in Madrid.
I've hit my stride with cheese-stuffed meatloaf and homemade spaghetti sauce from Matthew Kenney's fabulous Big City Cooking.
And we are both fans of make-ahead oatmeal pancakes, courtesy of a 10-year-old Bon Appetit recipe. These come in handy when entertaining our steady stream of out-of-town friends and family.
But at the end of the day, I get the biggest kick out of asking my better half what he'd like to go with the chicken/pork chops/steak we might be having for dinner. Without a doubt, he says, "How about your green bean casserole?"
That's right -- the cream of mushroom soup/green bean/french fried onion bake, which will sit on millions of dining room tables at Thanksgiving, is a year-round treat in our house.
It requires just six ingredients and a quick stir before going into a casserole dish and then the oven.
The dish was the brainchild of one Dorcas Reilly, who developed the recipe in the Campbell's Soup test kitchen 53 years ago. Once it crossed the Associated Press wire, it was a hit.
In 1965, Campbell's began printing the recipe on its soup can labels. Four years ago, the green bean casserole was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame.
Reilly was simply trying to add a little excitement to a green bean side dish. So she took cream of mushroom soup -- the lazy man's bechamel sauce, as the company even admits -- and mixed it with green beans (canned for the mushy version, frozen for a crispier bite), milk, black pepper, soy sauce and french fried onions.
It is Campbell's Soup's most popular recipe. John W. Faulkner, a Campbell's spokesman, says some 30 million households make it annually -- largely between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The folks over at French's, whose french fried onions have cornered the market, say this is their busy season, too. While the recipe is straightforward, a challenge for many consumers is actually tracking down the onions in the grocery store. Hint: Check the canned vegetable aisle, nearest the green beans.