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Baked Nevada
6 tablespoons shortening 1/2 cup chopped green peppers 1/2 cup chopped onion 1 cup toasted bread crumbs 2 cups cooked lima beans 1 cup seedless raisins 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten 2 egg whites, beaten stiff Brown green pepper and onion in the shortening until tender, and stir in bread crumbs well. Remove from fire and add lima beans, raisins, salt, pepper and egg yolks, with enough bean liquor to moisten slightly if necessary. Mix thoroughly. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into individual greased cups and bake 30 minutes in a moderate over (350 degrees). Serve with cheese sauce. Six strips bacon diced and fried make the dish especially good and supply the fat for browning the ingredients. Serves 8.
A savory baked pudding of lima beans and raisins, leavened with beaten egg whites and served in individual cups. It behaves like a souffl u00e9 in miniature, so the folding and the baking time matter more than anything else.
- Oven temperatureThe 350F given in the original is correct for a moderate oven, and this mixture wants no more. Bake on a middle rack, uncovered, for the full 30 minutes; the tops should be set and lightly domed.
- ShorteningSix tablespoons of vegetable shortening, a common neutral fat in kitchens of this period. Butter or a mild oil can be used instead. The bacon variation at the end of the recipe is said to supply the fat for browning, in place of the shortening.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe egg whites are the only lift in the dish. Beat them to stiff but not dry peaks and fold them into a mixture that has cooled below hand-warm, or the whites will deflate and the cups will bake dense.
- Lima beans and bean liquorTwo cups of cooked limas means drained beans; save the cooking water, which is the "bean liquor" called for as moistener. Canned butter beans, drained with their liquid reserved, substitute directly. Dried limas need about 1 cup dry, soaked and simmered until tender.
- Toasted crumbsDry, coarse crumbs from toasted bread, not fine packaged crumbs, which absorb too much fat and turn pasty. Toast slices, cool, then tear or pulse them.
- Individual cupsSix-ounce ramekins or a buttered muffin tin both work. Fill about three-quarters full to allow for rise, and set them on a sheet pan for easy handling.
- Cheese sauceNo recipe is given here. A cheese sauce of this period was generally a white sauce of equal butter and flour with milk, finished off the heat with grated cheese. Keep it thin enough to pour.
- YieldEight servings as written, which is generous for eight ramekins; as a light supper dish with the cheese sauce it feeds four to six.