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Puree of White Beans
Soak a pint of white beans over night, drain, place in a saucepan with a half pound piece salt pork, one carrot cut in quarters, one white onion with two cloves stuck in, two branches parsley, half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper and one quart water. Cover pan, boil thirty minutes, then set in oven one hour. Remove, free beans from all the ingredients, then press through a sieve into another saucepan, add half ounce good butter, mix well with wooden spoon while heating for four minutes, remove and use as required.
A straightforward bean purée in the French manner, written for a cook who already knew what a purée was for. Two things need pinning down: the oven temperature, which the original omits, and the amount of liquid, which is tight.
- A pint of beansDried beans were sold and measured by volume, so a pint here means about two cups, roughly 14 oz to 1 lb. Navy, cannellini or Great Northern all work; soaked overnight they will roughly double.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Treat it as a moderate oven, 325-350F, with the pan covered as the recipe directs so the liquid does not boil away.
- LiquidOne quart of water for a pint of dried beans is barely enough once thirty minutes of boiling has evaporated some of it. Check partway through the oven hour and add boiling water to keep the beans submerged.
- Doneness over timingNinety minutes total suits fresh-crop beans. Older dried beans, or beans cooked in hard water, can take considerably longer. They must crush easily between finger and thumb before you sieve them, or the puree will be gritty.
- Salt pork and seasoningA half pound of salt pork contributes a great deal of salt on its own. Hold back the half teaspoon of salt until the beans are tender, then taste. Very salty pork is worth blanching first.
- The onion with clovesThis is an oignon clouté, a standard French aromatic. Both it and the carrot and parsley are discarded, so leave them in large pieces that are easy to fish out.
- SievingA food mill or potato ricer does the work of the sieve and also holds back the skins, which is half the point. A food processor or blender will not remove the skins; if you use one, pass the puree through a sieve afterwards.
- Finishing and yieldHalf an ounce of butter is one tablespoon, beaten in over heat to gloss the puree and tighten it slightly. Expect something over three cups, enough for four to six as a side or as the base of a soup thinned with stock.
Bean pur en kitchen technique meets peasant cooking: the beans, salt pork and clove-studded onion are the everyday larder of rural France, but the method — long gentle cooking, sieving, finishing with butter — is the classical purée of the professional kitchen, where a smooth vegetable base was a building block for soups, garnishes and beds for roasted meat. That is why the recipe ends with "use as required" rather than a serving suggestion; it is written as a component, not a dish. Purées of dried legumes were generally named for their pulse in French usage, with white bean purée often going under the name purée soissonnaise, after the beans of Soissons.