No. 715

Puree of Flageolet, Lima or Broad Beans

Puree de Haricots Flageolets ou de Lima, Feves de Marais

Wash two pounds of flageolet beans, and then cook them in six quarts of salted water to which has been previously added two ounces of butter; when done, drain and pound the beans in the mortar, then put them into a saucepan with one pint of very thick bechamel sauce (No. 409), and two tablespoonfuls of meat glaze (No. 401); season with salt, sugar, and red pepper, pass the whole through a sieve, and heat it again without boiling. Should the puree be too thick, add a little cream, and just before serving, two ounces of fine butter.

Lima beans, broad beans and fresh white beans, are to be prepared and finished exactly the same.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French bean purée, thickened and enriched rather than merely mashed. Two of Ranhofer's cross-referenced numbers do most of the work, so read those first.

The hinge: never let it boilOnce the béchamel, glaze and butter are in, the purée is a butter-and-cream emulsion held by starch. Bringing it to a boil will make it break and turn grainy or oily. Hold it below a simmer, and add the final butter off the heat, swirling it in.
Which beans, and dried or freshFlageolets are the pale green immature seeds of a haricot bean, sold today almost entirely dried. Ranhofer's "wash two pounds" reads like fresh shelled beans, and his six quarts of water and a single cooking stage suit fresh; if you use dried flageolets, soak them and expect 1 to 1.5 hours of simmering. Two pounds of dried beans will yield considerably more purée than two pounds fresh, so scale down accordingly.
Béchamel No. 409B u00e9chamel No. 409 -- Ranhofer's béchamel is a butter-and-flour roux cooked with milk; this recipe asks for it "very thick," so reduce it to something closer to a spoonable paste than a pouring sauce. A pint of it against two pounds of beans is a large proportion; a modern cook may want two-thirds of that, then thin with cream as directed.
Meat glaze No. 401Glaze is veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. Commercial demi-glace or a good reduced stock concentrate works; use it sparingly, as modern versions are much saltier than a house-made glaze.
Broad beans need a second peelingIf you substitute broad (fava) beans, slip off the individual grey skins after cooking as well as shelling the pods. The sieve will otherwise fill with tough hulls and the colour will go drab.
Mortar and sieveA food processor replaces the mortar, but do not skip the sieve, or a fine drum sieve or food mill — it is what makes this a purée rather than a mash. A blender plus a fine-mesh strainer will also serve.
Seasoning"Red pepper" here means cayenne, in a pinch rather than a spoonful, and the sugar is there to lift the beans, not to sweeten. Season at the end, since the glaze and the salted cooking water both contribute salt.
YieldNo yield is given; the book rarely states one. Two pounds of fresh shelled beans with a pint of béchamel makes something on the order of 1.5 quarts of purée — enough to garnish plates for a dozen or more. Halve or quarter it for a household.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that kitchen's repertoire, numbered and cross-referenced like a technical manual. This entry sits in the garnishings chapter because a purée of this kind was rarely a dish in its own right: it was spooned or piped beside a saddle of lamb or a roast bird, one component of a composed plate. Flageolets themselves were a relatively recent arrival, conventionally credited to a French grower's selection around 1872 of haricot beans picked young and green, and by Ranhofer's day they were often associated with lamb in French practice. The instruction to finish broad beans and fresh white beans "exactly the same" is characteristic of the book's economy — one method, several seasons' worth of beans, and no need to reprint it three times.