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WHITE KIDNEY BEANS (a la Lyonnaise)
Cut a few onions into dice, and fry them in a little butter till they are of a light-brown colour; then add two spoonfuls of Spanish sauce. Let the onions be well done; season them with pepper and salt; drain the beans, which should have been dressed as above, then throw them into the sauce, and serve up hot. If you have no Spanish sauce, when you have fried the onions add a spoonful of fine flour, and moisten with good gravy, or broth, and a little glaze; then boil very well, and put the beans in as directed. This manner is for entremets, and they are dressed the same to put under a leg of mutton roasted, or a quarter of mutton a la Lyonnaise.
A short finishing recipe that assumes you already have cooked white beans and a pot of brown sauce standing by. Read it as an assembly, not a dish from scratch.
- The hinge: the onionsEverything the dish has comes from onions taken to a genuine light brown in butter over moderate heat, which can take 15-20 minutes. Rushing them at high heat gives scorched edges and a raw allium bite that the sauce will not cover.
- Spanish sauceThis is sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on a brown roux, brown stock and mirepoix, simmered and skimmed for hours. Cassell assumes a stockpot household; a good reduced brown veal or beef stock, lightly thickened, stands in for it.
- GlazeGlaze means glace de viande, brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A teaspoon of a commercial demi-glace or reduced stock concentrate does the same job of adding body and gloss.
- "Dressed as above"The beans come from a preceding entry in the book, so the cook is expected to have white beans already cooked and ready to drain. If you are working from scratch, use dried white beans soaked and simmered until tender, or well-rinsed tinned beans; quantity is left to the cook, as the recipe gives none.
- SpoonfulsVictorian recipe spoons were not standardised. Read "two spoonfuls" of sauce as two generous tablespoons and "a spoonful of fine flour" as about a level tablespoon; the recipe specifies only "a little butter", so adjust the flour to whatever fat is in the pan.
- EntremetsIn this period an entremets was a dish served after the roast, often a vegetable or sweet, rather than a modern side dish. In practice serve the beans hot alongside or beneath roast lamb or mutton.
- Seasoning and finishThe recipe seasons the onions with pepper and salt before the beans go in; since beans take up salt readily and the sauce is already reduced, taste again at the end. Chopped parsley or a squeeze of lemon are optional modern additions, not part of the original.
"A la Lyonnaise" in nineteenth-century kitchen French means cooked with onions, usually browned in butter, and the name is traditionally linked to the reputation of Lyon, though that association is more culinary tradition than documented derivation. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery catalogued classical French preparations for British households, and this entry shows the method faithfully: the onions carry the dish, and sauce espagnole binds it. The alternative given for cooks with no espagnole to hand, flour with gravy or broth and a spoonful of glaze, suggests a readership with a stockpot but not a full sauce station. Dried white haricot beans were widely used in French provincial cooking and available in Britain by this date, cheap and storable, and mutton was still a common roasting meat in Britain in a way it has long since ceased to be.