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French Beans A La Maitre D'Hotel
Pick, string, and cut up the beans, shred each bean into three or four strips, wash well, drain in a colander, then throw them in a stewpan containing boiling water, and a handful of salt, boil briskly until quite tender. They must be drained in a colander, plunged in cold water for five minutes, then drained upon a napkin to absorb all moisture. Put a gravy-spoonful of Bechamel sauce into a stewpan with four ounces of fresh butter, a tablespoonful of chopped and parboiled parsley, little nutmeg, mignonette pepper, salt and the juice of half a lemon; stir these well together over the hot fire, when well mixed throw in the beans, and toss the whole together over the fire until quite hot; then dish them up with a border of croutons round them and serve.
A classic French treatment of green beans, finished in butter enriched with a spoonful of béchamel. The method is sound; the quantities and one or two timings belong to a period of larger tables and softer vegetables.
- The hinge: keep the pan below a simmerFour ounces of butter loosened with a little béchamel is an emulsion, not a sauce that wants heat. Toss the beans in it over low heat only until hot through; a hard boil will break the butter out and leave the beans greasy.
- "Gravy-spoonful" of béchamelA gravy spoon was larger than a tablespoon; something in the order of 2 to 3 tablespoons is a reasonable reading, though the measure was never standardised. Its job here is to bind the butter and lemon juice, so err on the small side rather than making a creamed bean dish.
- Butter quantityFour ounces (one stick) for a dish serving four to six is generous by modern taste. Two ounces gives the same gloss without pooling in the dish.
- Mignonette pepperCoarsely cracked pepper, often white (sometimes a mixture of white and black), said to be named for a resemblance to mignonette seed. Cracked white pepper keeps the pale sauce clean-looking; coarse black works if that is what is on the shelf.
- Shredding and boiling timeBeans cut lengthwise into three or four strips cook fast. In heavily salted boiling water they need about 3 to 5 minutes; "quite tender" here likely means softer than modern taste prefers.
- Refreshing the beansThe five minutes in cold water is the period's version of an ice bath and it does set the colour. Drain hard afterwards and blot on a towel, as instructed, or water will thin the butter sauce.
- Parboiled parsleyBlanching chopped parsley for a few seconds and squeezing it dry mutes any harshness and holds a bright green in the sauce. Skipping it is not fatal, but it is the reason the finished dish looks the way it should.
- CroûtonsHere they mean small triangles or fingers of bread fried in butter and stood around the edge of the dish, not the cubes sold for salads. Fry them at the last minute so they stay crisp against the sauce.
- YieldReckon on about 1 1/2 lb of beans for four to six as a side dish.
"À la maître d'hôtel" originally meant nothing more than butter worked with parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper — the steward's own quick finish for vegetables, grilled meat or fish — and it spread through nineteenth-century English cookery as a familiar French garnish. The version here has been pushed a step further towards the professional kitchen by the spoonful of béchamel, which helps hold the butter together so the dish can stand a moment before serving; the phrasing, the gravy-spoonful measure and the border of croûtons suggest a source in the professional grand-service tradition rather than plain household cooking.