Haricots Verts, Maitre-d'Hotel
Après avoir lavé et épluché les haricots jetez-les dans l'eau bouillante, ajoutez-y une bonne poignée de sel, les faire cuire vivement, vingt à vingt-cinq minutes suffisent, au moment de les servir il faut bien les égoutter dans une pressoire, les mettre dans un légumier avec un peu de sel et du beurre à volonté; remuez très-légèrement, la chaleur des haricots doit faire fondre le beurre, saupoudrez d'un peu de persil haché et servez, il faut surtout ne pas les laisser tremper dans l'eau avant de les faire cuire et ne pas les préparer à l'avance dans le légumier et les égoutter vivement pour qu'ils ne refroidissent pas.
Pour la cuisson environ quatre litres d'eau pour 500 grammes d'haricots.
The same green beans, finished the classic French way — tossed in butter and parsley off the heat, and served the instant they’re drained.
- The cooking ratioThe recipe is precise: 4 liters water to 500 g beans, or about 4 quarts to 1 pound. Plenty of well-salted water keeps the beans green and cooks them evenly.
- “À la maître d’hôtel”This finish means little more than butter and chopped parsley (classically with a squeeze of lemon); the residual heat of the beans melts the butter into a light glaze.
- Shorter is betterThe 20–25 minutes given is long by today’s taste; for crisp-tender beans, 5–7 minutes is plenty. Either way, the technique holds.
- Don’t pre-soakThe pointed warning not to soak the beans first is sound: soaking waterlogs them and dulls their flavor.
- Serve immediatelyDress and serve at once — beans held in their dish go cold and limp, which the recipe is at pains to prevent.
The term maître d’hôtel once meant the steward who ran a great household’s table, and his name attached to the simplest, most reliable of finishes: soft butter worked with parsley and lemon. “Maître d’hôtel butter” became a fixture of the French repertoire, melted over grilled steaks and fish as readily as over vegetables — the kind of quiet, foolproof preparation a head steward could stake his reputation on. That it dresses a humble plate of green beans here shows how thoroughly such restaurant vocabulary had entered the Creole home kitchen.
From page 104 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
