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String Beans German Fashion
1 qt. beans 2 tablespoons butter 1 teaspoon sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1/4 cup stock 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice Wash, remove the strings from the beans, then cut each pod through twice lengthwise, then cut into two inch lengths. Parboil the beans for thirty minutes, saute in a stew pan with the butter and seasonings, cook until butter is absorbed then add stock and lemon juice and simmer until perfectly tender.
A butter-braised green bean dish from a flour-company promotional cookbook, written when beans were tougher and cooks boiled them far longer than we do.
- A quart of beansBeans were measured by volume in this period; 1 quart of whole trimmed pods is roughly a pound, serving four as a side.
- Cut the timing hardThirty minutes of parboiling plus a simmer will reduce modern beans to grey mush. Today's varieties are bred tender and stringless: parboil 3 to 5 minutes, then finish in the butter and stock for another 5 or so until they yield but still hold shape.
- The lengthwise cutSplitting each pod twice lengthwise then crosswise into two-inch lengths was meant to help thick, fibrous pods cook through. With slender modern beans, cut them once lengthwise at most, or leave whole and shorten the cooking further.
- StringingAlmost all supermarket green beans now lack the fibrous suture the recipe assumes. Just top and tail them.
- Stock1/4 cup of any light meat or vegetable stock. The dish is essentially a glaze, so use something with body; water will taste thin against the butter and sugar.
- Stew panA wide saucepan or skillet with a lid. The beans should sit in a single layer so the butter coats rather than pools.
- Sauté until the butter is absorbedThis is the hinge. The point is to let the beans take up the seasoned fat before any liquid goes in, which is what distinguishes the dish from plain boiled beans. Keep the heat moderate so the butter does not brown and the sugar does not catch.
- Lemon at the endAcid dulls the green of beans. Adding the lemon juice with the stock, as written, is fine for a short finish, but if you extend the cooking at all, hold it back until just before serving.
"German fashion" in American cookbooks of this era usually signals butter, a pinch of sugar and a splash of acid — the treatment given to green beans across much of central Europe, where they were often finished with bacon fat or a little vinegar rather than lemon. The Gold Medal Flour Cook Book was published by the Washburn-Crosby milling company of Minneapolis as advertising for its flour, and, as such books often did, it filled out its pages with a full domestic-science repertoire, vegetables included, in the plain measured style then being taught in cooking schools. Its long parboiling time reflects both the tougher, stringier bean varieties of the day and a period conviction that vegetables required thorough cooking to be wholesome; the notion that green vegetables should stay crisp and bright belongs to a later generation of cooks.