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Buttered String Beans
String and cut fine 1 quart of green beans.
In a saucepan put I large tablespoonful of butter, ½ teaspoonful of salt, ¼ of a teaspoonful of white pepper and ½ teaspoonful of grated onion. Cook slowly for three minutes, turn in the beans, cover closely and shake over the front of the fire for five minutes. Add 1/3 of a cupful of boiling water, stir well, recover and draw aside where they will cook slowly. As often as there is danger of burning add a few spoonfuls more of boiling water. When very tender uncover for five minutes that any liquid remaining may evaporate. When cooked in this way they have a peculiar mellowness never found in beans cooked in a large quantity of water.
A braise rather than a boil: the beans cook in butter and a few spoonfuls of water until they collapse into tenderness. The method still works, and works better on a modern hob than it did on a coal range.
- The hingeA third of a cupful of boiling water goes in after the initial buttered shake, and after that only a few spoonfuls at a time, when the pan threatens to catch, so the beans steam in butter rather than swim. The recipe specifies boiling water, which keeps the pan from stalling.
- QuantityA quart of cut beans is roughly 1 lb, or about 4 cups prepared. Serves three to four as a side.
- "Cut fine"The recipe has you string the beans first, so these were beans with tough strings, and "cut fine" points to shredding lengthwise or slicing thin on the diagonal. Modern haricots verts need only topping and halving, and will be tender far sooner.
- "Shake over the front of the fire"The hottest part of a range top. Use medium-high heat with the lid on and shake the pan rather than stirring, then move to low for the long cook.
- TimingExpect 15 to 25 minutes at a bare simmer for standard green beans, less than 10 for thin young ones. The recipe's target is "very tender" rather than crisp, so judge by bite, not the clock.
- Grated onion1½ teaspoons, as the original specifies; grate it on the fine side of a box grater so the juice goes in with the pulp and nothing browns.
- White pepperA quarter teaspoon, used here to keep dark flecks out of a pale dish. Black pepper will do if that is what you have.
- FinishingThe final uncovered five minutes is not optional; it drives off the last of the water so the butter clings. If the pan is still wet, raise the heat briefly and keep the beans moving.
Cooking green beans in a covered pan with butter and a spoonful or two of liquid is the technique French cookery calls cooking à l'étuvée, or "in their own juices," and American cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are often said to have recommended it as a corrective to the prevailing habit of boiling vegetables in a large kettle and pouring the water down the drain. The closing sentence here is doing the arguing: mellowness against waterlogging. The appeal is practical as well as culinary, since a single large tablespoon of butter and a third of a cup of water flavour a whole quart of beans, and nothing of the vegetable is thrown away with the cooking liquid.