No. 2700

Red Beans, Smothered

Haricots Rouges a l'Etuvee

Steep a pound of red beans for six hours in cold water, drain, put them into a saucepan and moisten to double their height with cold water; add half a pound of blanched bacon, a carrot cut in four, and a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf. When the beans are three-quarters done, take out the carrots and herbs and put in one pound of small onions fried in clarified butter, also a pint of red wine; continue to boil until thoroughly done, then drain, and put them back into a sautoir and thicken with a little espagnole sauce (No. 414), seasoning with salt, pepper and chopped parsley. Dress the beans and surround them with the bacon cut up in slices. The red beans may be replaced by white or black beans.

← No. 2699 Lima or Kidney Beans, Maitre d'Hotel Beans, Peas & Lentils No. 2701 White Beans, Thickened Maitre d'Hotel and Br →

For the Modern Kitchen

A straightforward braise once you translate Ranhofer's brigade vocabulary. The whole dish hinges on adding the wine and onions only when the beans are already three-quarters tender.

SautoirA wide, straight-sided shallow pan — a modern sauté pan or braiser. The point is surface area for reducing the sauce without crushing the beans.
Blanched baconA half-pound slab of bacon or salt pork, dropped into boiling water for 5-10 minutes and drained before it goes in. This pulls out excess salt and smoke so the cure seasons the beans instead of dominating them. Do not use thin supermarket rashers; you need a piece you can slice at the end.
EspagnoleRanhofer's No. 414 is a classic brown sauce built on brown roux and stock, a long job in a restaurant kitchen. Two or three tablespoons of any good reduced brown stock or demi-glace does the same job, or mash a ladleful of the cooked beans and stir them back in to thicken.
SoakingThe recipe calls for six hours in cold water. Modern dried beans, if reasonably fresh, do fine with the same soak; older stock may want overnight.
Moisten to double their heightCover the soaked beans with cold water reaching twice as deep as the bean layer, so the depth of water above the beans matches the depth of the beans themselves. Start cold; after the initial boil, keep the liquid at a steady simmer, since a hard rolling boil throughout will split the skins.
Why the wine waitsAcid slows the softening of bean skins, so the pint of red wine goes in only at the three-quarters mark. Adding it at the start can leave the beans stubbornly firm no matter how long they cook.
TimingFigure 60-90 minutes total for red kidney or cranberry beans, with the wine and onions going in at around 45-60 minutes. Judge by the beans, not the clock.
Small onionsPearl or small boiling onions, peeled and gently browned in clarified butter. A pound is a lot of onions for a pound of beans, and that is deliberate — they are as much a component as a seasoning.
YieldA pound of dried beans plus bacon and onions serves six to eight as a side, four as a main course with bread.

A Little History

This is Charles Ranhofer's entry from The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he wrote after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York. Haricots rouges à l'étuvée means simply red beans stewed in a covered pot — étuver is the French verb for cooking slowly in a small amount of liquid, and it is the same technique behind everything from braised lettuce to a Breton bean pot. The interesting thing about the recipe is what a grand restaurant did with a peasant ingredient: the beans, bacon, carrot and herb bundle are ordinary French country cooking, but then come a pint of red wine, a pound of butter-glazed onions and a finish of espagnole, the great brown mother sauce that a kitchen like Delmonico's kept simmering as a matter of course. Ranhofer's closing note that white or black beans will serve as well is characteristic of the book, which was written as a working reference for professionals rather than a set of fixed formulas.