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Beans, Haricots Blancs, to Boil
INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 or persons.-1 quart of white haricot beans, quarts of soft water, 1½ oz. of butter, 1 heaped tablespoonful of salt. AVERAGE COST, 6d.
Put the beans into cold water, let them soak from 2 to 4 hours, according to their age; then put them into cold water salted in the above proportion, bring them to boil, and let them simmer very slowly until tender; pour the water away from them, and let them stand by the side of the fire, with the lid of the saucepan partially off, to allow the beans to dry; then add 1 oz. of butter and a seasoning of pepper and salt. Shake the beans about for a minute or two, and serve; do not stir them with a spoon, for fear of breaking them to pieces.
TIME. After the water boils, from 2 to 2½ hours.
SEASONABLE in winter, when other vegetables are scarce. Note.-Haricots blancs, when new and fresh, should be put into boiling water, and do not require any soaking previous to dressing.
BEEF.
Béchamel Maigre, or Without
A plain boiled bean, dressed with butter and pepper, from an era when dried pulses carried households through the winter. The text as printed here opens mid-sentence from the previous entry and runs into the next, and the water quantity has dropped out in the process.
- The missing water quantityThe ingredient list reads "quarts of soft water" with the number lost in printing. Beans want enough water to stay covered by two or three inches throughout, with topping up as needed; four quarts to a quart of beans is a safe working amount.
- A quart of beansBeans were measured by volume. A quart of dried white haricots is roughly 1½ to 1¾ lb, which yields something like 4½ lb cooked — generous for four, and closer to six or eight modern portions as a side dish.
- The butter discrepancyThe list calls for 1½ oz of butter, the method adds only 1 oz. Use the full 1½ oz (3 tablespoons) if you like; the difference is a matter of richness, not technique.
- That heaped tablespoon of saltAround 1 oz of salt in four quarts of water gives a lightly salted brine, which modern practice supports: it seasons the beans through and helps the skins stay whole rather than bursting. The old warning that salt toughens beans has largely been discounted.
- Cooking timeTwo to two and a half hours after boiling is far longer than modern beans need, and probably reflects older, drier stock. Beans bought this year, soaked four hours, are usually tender in 45 to 90 minutes. Start testing at 45 minutes.
- Soft waterBeeton specifies soft water for a reason: calcium and magnesium in hard water slow the softening of the skins. If your tap water is very hard, filtered or bottled water shortens the cooking noticeably. A pinch of bicarbonate of soda does the same but blurs the flavour.
- The drying stepDraining and letting the pan stand at low heat with the lid partially off drives off surface water so the butter coats rather than dilutes. Keep the heat very low — a minute or two is enough — and shake the pan rather than stirring, as instructed.
- "Haricots blancs, when new and fresh"The note most likely refers to freshly dried beans of the current season rather than fresh shelling beans, though the advice would hold for both: skip the soak and start them in boiling water.
- Seasonable in winterSixpence for a dish serving four says everything about why this recipe exists. Dried beans were the cheap winter vegetable when nothing green was in the market.
The haricot blanc is the white-seeded form of Phaseolus vulgaris, a New World bean that reached Europe in the sixteenth century and was taken up with particular enthusiasm in France, where it became the foundation of cassoulet and a standard accompaniment to gigot. The name is generally traced to the French haricot, itself of disputed origin — one long-repeated suggestion links it to a Nahuatl word, another to the old French harigoter, to cut up, as in a stew of mutton. Beeton gives the bean its French name, and the price of sixpence makes the economy of the dish plain. The instruction not to stir with a spoon guards against a pan of beans being reduced to purée in the last two minutes.