Creole Green Beans
A delicious blend of fresh green beans, San Marzano style tomatoes and Creole flavors, topped with crispy bacon.
There are a number of recipes on the Internet for this dish and I did not note from which site I chose this particular recipe. While there are variations on this basic, classic Creole dish, the defining characteristics aside from the titular ingredient are tomatoes, onion, green bell pepper, bacon, mustard, and brown sugar, or molasses.
San Marzano Tomatoes
Most recipes call for whole, peeled, canned tomatoes and I chose a San Marzano style because that is what was available. Some people, usually Italians, are very fussy about a true San Marzano tomato versus a San Marzano style tomato. They are not the same. For starters, true San Marzano tomatoes originate from southern Italy in the Campania region south of Rome. That’s the region that hosts the ill-fated Roman city of Pompeii, now an important archeological site.
And therein lies a reason why the Italian government protects this tomato’s reputation with the same fervor as they do Balsamic Vinegar, regulated by the DOP, or Denominazione Di Origine Protetta (Protected Designation of Origin). Marzano tomatoes are a style of what we would call in the U.S. a plum tomato, and while growers in California grow it from the same seeds as the Italians, they cannot duplicate the soil conditions that Mount Vesuvius has provided the surrounding region for the last 25,000 years.
Consequently, the most common San Marzano tomato available will have the “style” moniker behind its name, and the label cannot carry the official DOP designation. Regardless, both the genuine San Marzano tomato and its imposters will give you a sweeter tomato, less acidic and with fewer seeds than the common garden variety tomato. Most Louisianians won’t use either, but settle on your average can of Hunt’s canned whole, peeled tomatoes, which will certainly do in a pinch. I did find, however, that using the sweeter San Marzano style allowed me to forgo the brown sugar and settle on just one table packet of Splenda, which I have incorporated into this recipe.
Speaking of tomatoes, that is one defining characteristic of a Creole dish, versus a Cajun one; Cajun dishes rarely contain them.
Creole Green Beans
A delicious blend of fresh green beans, San Marzano style tomatoes and Creole flavors, topped with crispy bacon.
Ingredients
- 6-8 slices thick cut bacon (like, Hormel Black Label)
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 1 medium green bell pepper, diced
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 table packet Splenda (or substitute 1 tbsp brown sugar)
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/4 tsp powdered mustard (like, Coleman's)
- 1 lb fresh green beans, snapped and cut into 2" pieces
- 1 28-oz can San Marzano style whole, peeled tomatoes, un-drained (like, Hunt's)
Instructions
- Blanch the green beans in boiling water for 8 minutes, then shock in an ice bath until ready to add to the recipe, but drain well beforehand.
- Fry the bacon in a large skillet over medium high heat until crispy. Remove the bacon and finely chop until ready to serve the dish. Reserve the bacon fat.
- In the same skillet with the bacon fat over medium high heat, sauté the onion and green bell pepper until they begin to caramelize, about 10 minutes.
- Move the vegetables to the sides of the skillet. In the center of the pan into the hot bacon fat, add the flour until it is mixed with the fat. Add the mustard powder, Splenda and salt, and stir to combine.
- Add the Worcestershire Sauce and the tomatoes and mix well with the onions and peppers, mashing the whole tomatoes as you go. Allow the dish to cook and the sauce to thicken for 10 minutes.
- Add the green beans and stir to combine all the ingredients. Turn the heat down and allow it to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Serve in bowls and allow guests to top with the chopped bacon to their liking.
Notes
- You can substitute fresh green beans with two 8-oz cans or one14.5-oz cans of canned green beans, but drain well before adding to the dish, then reduce the final cooking time to 5 minutes or until the beans are heated through.
