No. 2826

String Beans a la Bourguignonne

Haricots Verts a la Bourguignonne

Cut two ounces of onion into squares; blanch in boiling salted water, drain, and fry colorless in butter; add to it some lean unsmoked bacon cut in three-sixteenths of an inch squares, an equal quantity of lean cooked ham cut the same and fried in butter, also two pounds of cleaned string beans; fry until the latter have evaporated their moisture, seasoning with salt; moisten with a pint of stock (No. 194a), and as much red wine, and when the beans are done and the liquid reduced add a little espagnole sauce (No. 414), butter, lemon juice, and a small pinch of finely sliced chives.

← No. 2825 String Beans a l'Albani Beans, Peas & Lentils No. 2827 String Beans a la Pettit →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's shorthand assumes a brigade with stockpots and sauce already on hand. The dish is a braise, not a quick saute, and the beans are meant to come out soft and wine-stained rather than bright green.

Expect soft, not crisp-tenderTwo pounds of beans simmered in a pint of stock and a pint of red wine until the liquid reduces will take 30 to 40 minutes and will lose all their colour. That is the intended result; if you want squeaky beans this is the wrong recipe. Older, tougher, string-bearing beans stood up to it better than modern thin filet types, which collapse.
Lean unsmoked baconThis is unsmoked cured pork belly \em>poitrine-style: Italian pancetta, or the French salt-cured petit salé. Ordinary American smoked bacon will dominate the wine. Cut to three-sixteenths of an inch means a small dice, a shade under a quarter inch.
The stockNo. 194a is one of the book's basic broths, cross-referenced rather than repeated. Any unsalted light chicken or veal stock works; because the liquid is reduced, salted commercial stock will finish harsh.
EspagnoleRanhofer's No. 414 is the classic brown sauce, a roux-thickened brown stock reduced with mirepoix over hours. A spoonful or two of any good reduced brown sauce or demi-glace does the same job here: it binds the reduced braising liquid into a glaze. Without it the dish is beans in a puddle.
Quantities not givenThe bacon and ham are only specified as equal to each other. Two to three ounces of each suits two pounds of beans. The espagnole, butter and lemon juice are finishing amounts — a tablespoon or two of sauce, a knob of butter, a squeeze of lemon off the heat.
Blanching the onionBoiling the diced onion before frying it colourless removes its raw sharpness so it will not assert itself against the wine. Skipping it is defensible but the finished dish is coarser.
Wine choiceA dry red with grip — the Burgundy the name implies, or any unoaked Pinot Noir or Gamay. Sweet or heavily oaked wine turns cloying as the liquid reduces.
YieldTwo pounds of beans serves six as a vegetable course alongside a roast.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and the book runs to well over three thousand numbered recipes cross-referenced to one another, which is why this one sends you off to No. 194a and No. 414 rather than telling you how to make stock or espagnole. À la bourguignonne in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage signals the Burgundian garnish — red wine, small onions, and salt pork lardons — the combination associated with beef bourguignon; applying it to a green vegetable was a standard piece of classical grammar, the garnish being understood as portable from one main ingredient to another. The addition of cooked ham alongside the bacon is unusual, and suits a hotel kitchen with cooked meats always at the ready.