No. 2828

String Beans Smothered

Haricots Verts Etuves

Choose string beans not too small but tender and fresh; cut them up and put them into a buttered sautoir, salting lightly; moisten to about their height with broth (No. 194a), cover the sauce pan, and cook the beans slowly, adding a little more broth as fast as it reduces. When the beans are done they should be dry, then baste them over with two or three spoonfuls of good thickened half-glaze sauce (No. 400); finish off the fire with some good fresh butter divided in small pats. Pour into a vegetable dish and serve.

← No. 2827 String Beans a la Pettit Beans, Peas & Lentils No. 2829 String Beans with Butter →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a braise rather than a boil: the beans cook slowly in just enough broth to keep them moist, and the liquid should be gone by the time they are tender. Two of the ingredients are cross-references to other numbers in The Epicurean, and both have easy modern equivalents.

The hinge: cook the liquid away, do not drainThe beans are done when the pan is dry and the last of the broth has glazed them. If liquid remains at the end you have added too much at once; uncover and let it reduce rather than pouring it off, since all the seasoning is in it.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, wider than it is deep. Any wide saute pan or skillet with a lid works. Width matters here: the beans should sit in a shallow layer so the broth reduces evenly.
Broth No. 194aRanhofer's cross-reference to one of his basic broths, a light veal or poultry stock. Use a good low-sodium chicken stock. Because it reduces onto the beans, salt lightly at the start as directed and correct at the end.
Half-glaze No. 400Demi-glace, a brown sauce reduced with stock until it coats a spoon. Two or three spoonfuls is all that is wanted. A well-reduced brown stock or a small amount of good jarred demi-glace serves; leave it out and you are close to the neighbouring No. 2829, string beans with butter.
Finishing butter off the fire"Finish off the fire" means off the heat. Cold butter swirled in away from the burner emulsifies into the glaze; if the pan is still hot the butter breaks and leaves the beans greasy.
TimingThe original gives no cooking time. Start checking at 12 to 15 minutes for beans cut into roughly two-inch lengths; they should be tender through but still hold their shape.
Choosing the beans"Not too small" is deliberate. Very fine haricots verts collapse in a braise of this length; a standard green bean of medium thickness stands up to it.
YieldThe original gives none. A pound of trimmed beans with about a cup of broth serves four as a side dish.

A Little History

Etuve means stewed or smothered in a closed vessel, generally traced to etuve, a stove or sweating-room, and the technique is one applied to vegetables elsewhere in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894): a little fat, a little broth, a lid, and slow heat until the vegetable has absorbed everything around it. Ranhofer was chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and the book is essentially the restaurant's working repertory set down in numbered entries, which is why so many recipes are strings of cross-references rather than self-contained instructions; the kitchen always had broth and half-glaze standing by. String beans appear in a long run of variations here, the difference between them lying almost entirely in the finish, and the American habit of boiling green beans at length with salt pork belongs to a different tradition altogether from this one.