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White Haricot, and Minced Onions
INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 or 5 persons.- 1 quart of white haricot beans, 4 middlingsized onions, 1/4 pint of good brown gravy, pepper and salt to taste; a little flour.
AVERAGE COST, 10d.
Peel and mince the onions not too finely, and fry them in butter of a light brown colour; dredge over them a little flour, and add the gravy and a seasoning of pepper and salt. Have ready a quart of haricot beans well boiled and drained; put them finely-minced herbs and sugar. Stew the | with the onions and gravy, mix all well beans until perfectly tender, and the liquor has dried away a little; then beat up the yolk of an egg with the cream, add this to the beans, let the whole get thoroughly together, and serve very hot.
TIME. From 2 to 2 hours to boil the beans; 5 minutes to fry the onions SEASONABLE in winter.
BEANS, HARICOT.
Beans, Haricots Blancs, à la
A plain winter dish of white beans stewed in onion gravy, from the era when haricots were bought dry by the quart rather than the pound. The measurements are imperial and the beans need soaking, neither of which the original mentions.
- Haricot beansThese are dried white beans — navy, cannellini or the small flat coco blanc. If the quart is a dry measure it is roughly 1 3/4 to 2 lb, a great deal for four or five people; but the direction to "have ready a quart of haricot beans well boiled and drained" may mean the quart is measured after cooking, in which case 12 oz to 1 lb of dry beans will do.
- Soak firstThe original gives no soaking instruction. Cover the beans generously with cold water for 8 to 12 hours, then drain and boil in fresh unsalted water; salt and the gravy go in at the end, once the skins are soft.
- Cooking timeSoaked white beans take 1 to 1 1/2 hours at a bare simmer, longer if the beans are old. Cook them until they crush completely against the side of the pan — underdone haricots stay mealy no matter how long they sit in the gravy.
- A quarter pint of gravyThat is 5 fl oz in imperial measure, a scant 2/3 cup. It is a coating amount, not a broth; the beans should be glossy rather than swimming. Any good beef or veal stock reduced with a little browned flour will stand in for the "good brown gravy".
- The onionsFour middling onions means about 1 lb. "Not too finely" minced is deliberate — the pieces should stay visible in the finished dish. Fry them slowly to a light brown for real sweetness, then dredge with flour and cook the flour a minute before the gravy goes in, or the sauce tastes pasty.
- ServingServe very hot; the dish thickens and stiffens as it cools. It reheats well with a splash of stock.
Haricot beans reached English kitchens by way of France, and the name itself is French — often traced to the older haricot meaning a stew of mutton, with the bean taking its name from the dish rather than the reverse, though the derivation is disputed. By Mrs Beeton's day the dried white bean was cheap and keepable, which is why her work treats it as a staple vegetable to be dressed several ways: with gravy and onions, with butter and parsley, or à la maître d'hôtel. The seasonableness "in winter" reflects a larder in which dried pulses stood in for fresh green vegetables.