Home › Vegetarian Dishes › Bean Roast
Bean Roast
1 cup well-roasted shelled peanuts 2 cups well-seasoned mashed potatoes 2 cups cooked Lima beans, fresh or canned 1/4 cup milk 1 egg 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon paprika 1 teaspoon onion-juice Grind the peanuts, using the finest blade of the food-chopper. In a well-oiled baking-dish place a layer of potatoes, a layer of beans and a layer of peanuts. Continue making layers until all the ingredients are used. Blend milk with well-beaten egg and seasoning and pour over the top. Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) until brown. Serve with brown sauce or tomato sauce.
A layered vegetarian loaf from the era when nut-and-legume "roasts" stood in for meat at the center of the plate. The original gives a temperature but no time or yield.
- Oven and timing350F is correct as printed. Figure 30 to 40 minutes in a shallow dish, until the custard has set and the top has browned; the mixture is already cooked, so you are only setting the egg and drying the surface.
- Grinding the peanutsThe finest blade of a food-chopper produces something between coarse meal and paste. A food processor pulsed in short bursts gives the same result, but stop before it turns to peanut butter or the layers will not stay distinct.
- PeanutsUse unsalted roasted peanuts and taste before adding the full teaspoon of salt, since roasted peanuts are often sold salted.
- Onion-juiceGrate a peeled onion on a fine grater and press the pulp in a sieve, or squeeze a grated shallot. One teaspoon is a modest amount; a tablespoon of very finely grated onion is a reasonable substitute.
- Lima beansTwo cups of cooked beans is roughly one 10-oz package of frozen limas; a 15-oz can drained yields somewhat less, nearer a cup and a half. Drain them well or the loaf will be watery.
- The bindingA quarter cup of milk with one egg is a thin custard poured over the top; it seeps down and holds the layers loosely. It will not produce a firm sliceable loaf, so serve it spooned from the dish rather than turned out.
- YieldAbout five cups of assembled mixture, serving four to six as a main course.
- Brown sauceThe brown sauce of this period is a flour-and-fat roux cooked to a nut color and thinned with stock, seasoned and strained. A vegetable stock version keeps the dish meatless; tomato sauce is the simpler choice.