No. 264

Cream of String Beans a la Vefour

Creme de Haricots Verts a la Vefour

Clean and blanch some beans in boiling, salted water, then drain them; put four ounces of butter into a saucepan on the fire, and after the butter is warm, throw in the beans, and fry them for a few moments. Moisten with two quarts of broth, and let the beans cook, then drain, and pound them in a mortar, dilute them with some of their own broth, and should the puree be too thick, then add more broth, put the puree back into a saucepan adding one quart of veloute (No. 415); season with salt, sugar and nutmeg, and stir well while bearing the spoon to the bottom till it reaches boiling point, but be careful that it does not boil. Thicken with egg-yolks, butter and cream. Serve separately a royal cream prepared as follows:

A royal cream (No. 241), garnishing poached in a buttered baking pan, let stand till cold, then cut it into small three-eighths of an inch squares and serve with the soup.

← No. 263 Cream of Squash, Turnips or Carrots with Com Soups & Broths No. 265 Cream of Sweet Potatoes a la Gerard →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stock, velouté and royale already standing by; read the cross-references as a shopping list before you start. The whole dish turns on the finish, which must be brought to the edge of a boil and no further.

The hinge: do not boil after the liaisonOnce the egg yolks, butter and cream go in, the soup is a custard in suspension and will curdle at a simmer. Hold it below 180F, stirring with the spoon flat on the bottom of the pan, and serve at once.
Velouté (No. 415)A white roux slackened with veal or chicken stock and simmered until it coats a spoon. One quart of it against two quarts of broth means this soup is thickened twice over; if you want a lighter result, cut the velouté and let the bean purée carry the body.
Royale (No. 241)An unsweetened savoury custard of egg, cream and stock, poached gently in a buttered pan set in a water bath until just set, cooled, then cut into 3/8-inch dice. Ranhofer gives no temperature; keep the heat low, or it will bubble and go porous.
Pounding in a mortarA blender does this in thirty seconds. Pass the purée through a fine sieve or chinois afterwards regardless, since bean skins do not break down and will read as grit.
Quantities and yieldNo bean weight is given. Two to two and a half pounds of green beans suits two quarts of broth and a quart of velouté, yielding roughly ten to twelve cups, or eight to ten servings as a first course.
Four ounces of butterThat is one full stick to sweat the beans, before more butter goes into the liaison. Two ounces is enough for a modern palate and will not thin the flavour.
Blanching and colourBlanch in heavily salted water and refresh in ice water, then keep the cooking time in the broth short. Long simmering turns the purée olive-brown; the sugar and nutmeg may be there to lift a bean flavour that has already been cooked twice.
BrothRanhofer means a house-made stock, lightly seasoned and gelatinous. Commercial stock is saltier and thinner, so season at the end rather than at the start.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and its soup chapter is essentially the French repertoire transplanted whole, cross-referenced like an engineering manual: no dish stands alone, each one sends you to a numbered velouté, royale or stock elsewhere in the book. The name points to the Véfour in the Palais-Royal, the Paris restaurant generally traced to a café opened there in 1784 and renamed for Jean Véfour after he took it over in the early nineteenth century; by Ranhofer's day attaching such a name to a dish signalled pedigree rather than any documented original. The technique itself is older than the garnish: a vegetable pounded to purée, bound with velouté and finished with a liaison of yolks and cream is the classic crème construction, and green beans were a fashionable choice precisely because they were a delicate, short-season vegetable that a large kitchen could show off by putting through so laborious a process.