String Bean Salad

A plain composed salad of the sort that filled the salad course in early twentieth-century menu books. Almost everything depends on how the beans were cooked and how long they sit in the dressing.

• The hinge: dress while barely warmCold cooked beans absorb dressing poorly. Toss them a few minutes after draining, while still warm, then chill; the vinegar penetrates instead of pooling at the bottom of the dish.
• "Cold cooked string beans"Period cookery boiled string beans much longer than we do, and the beans of the day often did need to be topped, tailed and strung. Modern stringless beans want 4-6 minutes in salted boiling water, then an ice bath to hold the color.
• French dressing of the eraThis means a simple oil-and-vinegar dressing with salt and pepper, not the sweet orange bottled product later sold under the name. Period ratios varied, commonly somewhere between two and three parts oil to one of vinegar. Figure 3-4 tablespoons for 2 cups of beans.
• The onionA teaspoon of raw chopped onion for 2 cups of beans is deliberately restrained. Mince it fine, or use shallot, so no one gets a whole bite of it.
• QuantityTwo cups of cooked beans is roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of a pound raw, and serves three to four as a side salad.
• ServingThe instruction to pile it in the center of the dish reflects a period preference for a built-up mound rather than a spread layer; the radish slices are the entire garnish, so cut them thin on a mandoline or with a sharp knife.