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Beans, Haricot, Dried
Soak one quart of haricot beans for two hours in cold water. Pour off the soaking water; put them into two quarts of water with a large table-spoonful of salt. Let them simmer until soft and mealy, then drain. Put them back into the saucepan with two ounces of butter, and seasoning of pepper and salt. Shake them until the butter is well melted and the beans hot through, and serve quickly. Time, from two to two and a half hours. Probable cost, 4d. to 6d. per quart. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A plain Victorian buttered bean dish that still works, with two things that need adjusting: the soak and the cooking time.
- The hinge: cook them fully before the butterBeans stop softening once they leave the water, so drain only when they are genuinely mealy and crush easily against the pan. The butter stage is reheating and glazing, not cooking.
- A quart of dried beansThat is a dry-measure quart, roughly 1 3/4 to 2 lb (800-900 g) of beans, which swell to well over double. Use a pan far larger than the two quarts of water suggests, or add water as they drink it.
- Two hours' soak is too shortNineteenth-century haricots were sold loose and often old, but two hours will not hydrate the centres of most beans. Soak 8 hours or overnight in cold water, or bring to a boil, cover and stand off the heat for an hour.
- TimeTwo to two and a half hours suits old, dry beans. Properly soaked modern navy or cannellini beans are done in 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours at a bare simmer. Start testing at 45 minutes.
- Salt in the waterThe tablespoon of salt in the cooking water is fine; modern practice generally favours salting rather than avoiding it, and it seasons the beans through. Salt does not prevent softening, contrary to later kitchen lore. Season lightly again at the butter stage rather than doubling up.
- Haricot beansIn British usage these are small dried white beans - navy or haricot blanc, the same bean sold tinned as baked beans. Cannellini or great northern work identically, with slightly longer cooking for the larger types.
- Keep it at a simmerA rolling boil breaks the skins and turns the dish to mush. Bare bubbles only, lid ajar, and skim the grey foam in the first ten minutes.
- ServingSix or seven as a vegetable side. A quarter of the butter's worth of chopped parsley, or a little lemon, keeps it from tasting flat by modern standards.
Dried haricots were a staple cheap protein in late-Victorian Britain, and the entry teaches the base technique on which stews, purees and soups would be built. The name comes to English through French haricot, a word often traced to Nahuatl ayacotl by way of Spanish, though the connection is disputed and the French word may simply have attached itself to the bean from the older sense of a chopped meat stew. The costing of fourpence to sixpence a quart is the point of the entry as much as the butter is.