No. 2825

String Beans a l'Albani

Haricots Verts a l'Albani

String some medium-sized tender beans; cut them into lozenges, and boil in salted water place in an untinned copper pan. Drain them off, saute in butter, and thicken with a little veloute (No. 415) and chicken glaze (No. 398), adding the juice of a lemon. Dress, bestrew with chopped parsley, and surround with triangular croutons (No. 51), on which lay quartered artichoke bottoms sauted in butter, and mingled with meat glaze (No. 402) and lemon juice.

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has velouté and two glazes standing by, so the work here is mostly assembly. Read the cross-references as sub-recipes you must make or substitute before you start.

Skip the untinned copperUnlined copper was used to hold the green of vegetables, and Ranhofer means it literally. Cooking in bare copper, especially with anything acidic, can leach copper into the food; blanch the beans in a stainless or enameled pot and shock them in ice water for a similar effect.
"String" and "lozenges"Stringing means pulling the fibrous seam from each pod, which modern bred beans rarely need. Lozenges are diagonal cuts giving short diamond-shaped pieces; the original specifies no size.
Boiling timeThe original gives none. Medium tender beans need 3 to 5 minutes in well-salted boiling water, until they bend without snapping; carry them past that and the sauté in butter will finish them into gray mush.
The referenced componentsNo. 415 velouté is a white stock sauce thickened with blond roux; No. 398 chicken glaze and No. 402 meat glaze are stocks reduced to a syrupy, near-solid consistency. Reduced homemade chicken and beef stock stand in acceptably; commercial demi-glace concentrate works for the meat glaze.
CroutonsNo. 51 is Ranhofer's crouton entry; here he wants bread cut in triangles and fried until crisp, not the diced dry cubes sold for salads. Cut them from a firm white loaf and fry just before serving so they stay crisp under the artichokes.
Artichoke bottomsThese are the trimmed hearts with leaves and choke removed. Jarred or frozen artichoke bottoms are a fair substitute; quarter them, sauté in butter until lightly colored, then toss with a spoonful of meat glaze and a squeeze of lemon off the heat.
Add the lemon lastThe juice of a whole lemon in a small quantity of velouté will thin it and dull the binding. Stir it in at the end with the pan off the burner, and taste before you commit all of it.
YieldThe original gives no quantities; treat it as a garnished vegetable course sized to accompany a roast rather than to stand alone.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his decades of cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and its vegetable chapters show how thoroughly the restaurant worked in the French grande cuisine idiom: a plain green bean is bound with velouté, glazed with reduced stock, and ringed with fried bread and artichoke hearts. The suffix à l'Albani follows the period habit of naming garnishes after singers and society figures; Ranhofer never explains his dedications. The instruction to boil the beans in an untinned copper pan is an older professional trick for fixing chlorophyll, one that French kitchens are said to have defended well into the twentieth century before concerns about copper's toxicity told against it.