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White Bean Salad
Double the recipe for French dressing, one pound white beans, shallot, chives, parsley.
Put dry white beans to soak in cold water for six hours; cook in plenty of water until tender, and when cold, put them in a salad bowl with a little shallot, chives and parsley, all chopped, and for each quart of beans add double the recipe given for French dressing. Stir well and serve.
A plain marinated bean salad that depends almost entirely on how the beans are cooked and when they are dressed. The original gives quantities by volume of cooked beans, which needs translating.
- Dress them warm, not coldThe instruction to wait until the beans are cold is the one place worth departing from. Beans absorb oil and vinegar readily while still warm and take up very little once chilled; drain, dress, then let the salad come to room temperature.
- What French dressing meantIn books of this period French dressing is generally oil and vinegar in roughly three-to-one proportion with salt and pepper, whisked or shaken; some versions add mustard or paprika, but it is not the emulsified, sweetened dressing the name later came to mean. Check the book's own French dressing entry for its yield before doubling it.
- Quantities do not quite line upOne pound of dry white beans yields roughly 6 to 7 cups cooked, a little over 1 1/2 quarts. Following the per-quart rule literally would give appreciably more dressing than the salad needs. Start with about 1 cup and add more after the beans have sat for an hour.
- SoakingSix hours is the minimum. Overnight, or a quick soak by bringing the beans to a boil, covering, and standing an hour off the heat, both work better. Discard the soaking water.
- Salt the cooking waterThe recipe is silent on it. Salt the water once the beans are simmering and taste as they go; unsalted beans will not be rescued by dressing alone.
- Bean choiceCannellini, great northern or navy beans all suit. Cook until fully tender and creamy inside, not merely yielding, or the salad will taste chalky. Expect 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours depending on age of the beans.
- Aromatics"A little shallot" is easy to overdo in a raw dressing. One medium shallot, finely chopped, for a pound of beans, plus a generous handful each of chives and parsley.
- YieldServes 8 to 10 as a side. It keeps three or four days refrigerated and improves on the second day, though the herbs will need refreshing.
Cold cooked pulses dressed with oil and vinegar are a long-established form of salad in European cooking, and they appear in Italian, Provençal and Levantine kitchens in close to this form. Compilations like this one leaned on French dressing as a single house vinaigrette repeated across many entries — which is why the recipe cross-references it rather than restating it. The dish also carries an older household logic: dried beans were cheap, kept well in the pantry, and a pound of them turned a few herbs and a cup of oil into a dish substantial enough to anchor a summer supper table.