Time for French Fridays with Dorie! Our recipe of the week is Pancetta Green Beans, since I don't eat pancetta, I tried to figure out a substitute, and still follow the cooking directions in the recipe. I decided to go with two different versions, one half batch with cashews (my first choice) and then, just for fun, I made a half batch with Bac-Os.
According to my google search, Bac-Os or some other kind of frozen fake bacon are popular subs when people try to swap the bacon out of recipes. I have never been a fake bacon eater, but I do like Bac-Os on my salad every now and then and had some in the pantry, so I figured I'd give them a shot.
Here are the beans in their water bath. I really appreciated the cooking times in this recipe because my beans turned out perfectly, and sometimes I struggle with how long to cook beans to get them to just the right tender crisp texture, soggy green beans really bug me. My husband usually likes his softer than I like mine, but the texture of these seemed to please us both.
I used butter in place of the tbsp of pancetta fat you are supposed to leave in the pan. Then followed the directions with the cashews and Bac-Os in two different batches.
They both turned out nicely and my boys liked them as a lunch side dish. I prefer the cashew version, they were delicious, but the Bac-Os version was fine too, and my boys really liked them. I will be using the bean cooking method (5 minutes in boiling salted water, ice bath, sauteed 2 extra minutes) in the future since we are all green bean fans in our house and I am always looking for new ways to cook them!
