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French Flageolets
Open a can of French flageolets. Drain and plunge them into boiling water for six minutes. Drain again. Place in a saucepan with half an ounce good butter, half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon powdered sugar and half saltspoon white pepper. Mix well for one minute and serve in a hot vegetable dish.
A one-minute side dish built on a can, and it still works exactly as written. The only translation needed is in the measures.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so half a saltspoon of white pepper is an eighth of a teaspoon — a whisper. Use white pepper if you have it; black specks look wrong against the pale green beans.
- Half an ounce of butterThat is one tablespoon, or 14 g. For a standard 15-oz can it is enough to gloss the beans without pooling; double it if you want them frankly buttery.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term usually means finely ground granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Half a teaspoon of ordinary caster or granulated sugar is the right substitution — it sharpens the beans' sweetness rather than sweetening the dish.
- The six-minute boilMost likely to rinse off the flat, tinny canning liquor and heat the beans through rather than to cook them further. Six minutes is plenty; drain as soon as they are hot, since longer boiling can split the skins and leave the beans mealy.
- Mixing for one minuteKeep the pan on low heat and swirl or fold gently rather than stirring hard. Flageolets are delicate and a vigorous spoon will break half of them into purée.
- Finding the beansCanned flageolets are still sold, usually as an import, and dried ones are widely available. If starting from dried, soak and simmer until tender, then pick up the recipe at the butter.
- YieldOne 14–15 oz can serves three or four as a side. The dish cools fast, which is why the original insists on a hot vegetable dish — warm the bowl.
Flageolets are immature haricot beans, picked before the seed hardens and dried while still pale green; the name is often traced to the resemblance between the slim bean and the small flute of the same name, though a derivation from the Latin phaseolus (bean) has also been proposed. They were bred and popularised in France in the nineteenth century and became a standard accompaniment to roast leg of lamb, a pairing still expected in French kitchens. What makes this entry interesting is that it is a canned-goods recipe in a book of international cookery: French tinned vegetables were by then reaching American and British grocers, and a cook could put a recognisably French garnish on the table in a few minutes. The seasoning -- butter, salt, a pinch of sugar, white pepper -- follows the familiar French treatment for a delicate vegetable, where the sugar is there to lift the flavour rather than to be tasted.