Green Beans with Mustard Seed Butter

I know.  You're thinking MUSTARD SEEDS?  Let me tell you, they were awesome.  Nutty, crunchy, awesome.  If this dish wasn't so full of bad for us things like butter and cream, I'd be whipping this up on a monthly basis.  Where is Mother Rimmy when I need her?  There's got to be a way to low cal this a bit.  I used half a stick of butter so that's four tablespoons.  We used about half of the butter and had two servings of the beans each.  (Dinner and lunch the next day.  And, let me tell you, they were equally awesome reheated!)  So, that's a tablespoon each.  The cream is 1/4 c and going through the same math since 1/4 cup has 4 tablespoons, we each had a tablespoon of cream.  That's actually HALF a tablespoon each per serving.  So, the question is, what could I replace some of the butter and some of the cream with to have the same end result?  I'm hoping one of you, my readers, will come up with a brilliant idea. 


This is from foodandwine.com.  I was hunting for recipes to use up some of our summer produce and this one jumped out at me.  We've done the green beans and tomatoes and onions routine.  And, the steamed beans on a salad.  And, the asian treatment.  This recipe jumped out at me because it was SO different.  I've not used sherry vinegar before and just happened to have picked up a bottle last time I was at Frasiers (my favorite gourmet foods emporium.)  The pan was still hot from toasting the mustard seeds when I poured the vinegar in.  The aroma just exploded.  Connie was out on the screened porch and walked into the house a couple of minutes later.  He said, "What in the world smells so good?"  Vinegar.  Oh, come on.  Yup, vinegar.  The sherry vinegar gave the sauce just a little edge.  Unless you knew what it was, you'd probably never be able to figure it out.  And, the mustard seeds.  Oh, my.  Fabulous.  I'm already trying to figure out new ways to incorporate those guys into some other recipes. 

Green Beans with Mustard Seed Butter


Ingredients:
1 T yellow mustard seeds
2 medium shallots, thinly sliced
1/3 c sherry vinegar
2 T water
1/4 c heavy cream
4 T unsalted butter, softened
2 T whole grain mustard
salt and pepper
2 lbs green beans, trimmed


Directions:


In a small skillet, toast the mustard seeds until they're nice and brown.  Pour them into a small bowl and let them cool. 

Pour the vinegar and water into the skillet.  Add the shallots and cook until the liquid is reduced to less than a tablespoon. 

Pour the vinegar into a bowl or measuring cup.  Pour in the cream and mix. 

Mix the butter, the whole grain mustard,

the vinegar/shallot mixture and the mustard seeds.  I found it was easier to incorporate the mustard then add the other ingredients. 

Blanch the green beans. 

Serve the green beans with a dollop of the butter.


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This post is part of a series featuring recipes from the FOOD and WINE archive. As a FOOD and WINE Blogger Correspondent, I was chosen to do four recipes a week from FOOD and WINE. I received a subscription to FOOD and WINE for my participation.