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String Bean Salad
Open a pint can string beans, suppress all the water and thoroughly dry on a cloth. Place in a salad bowl, add two cold hard-boiled eggs, cut into quarters Season with four tablespoons dressing. Thoroughly mix and serve.
A three-line French bean salad that depends almost entirely on one step: getting the beans dry before they meet the dressing.
- "Suppress all the water"A literal rendering of the French supprimer — simply drain. The instruction to dry the beans on a cloth is the hinge of the dish; canned beans hold water in their seams, and any that remains will thin the dressing into a puddle at the bottom of the bowl. Spread them on a towel and blot.
- A pint canAbout 2 cups by volume; a modern 14.5 oz can is the nearest common size and will give roughly 1½ cups drained.
- Canned versus freshCanned string beans were a year-round convenience by 1906, and the canning process leaves them soft. Fresh beans blanched until just tender and shocked cold work in the same quantity and give a far better texture, though the salad was written for the can.
- "Four tablespoons dressing"Almost certainly a French dressing of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper; period proportions vary, commonly two to four parts oil to one of vinegar. Four tablespoons is generous for this volume of beans; add half, toss, and judge.
- StringsThe name is literal. Beans of the period had a tough fibre along the seam that had to be pulled off; modern cultivars are bred stringless, which is why the term has largely dropped out of use.
- EggsQuartered hard-boiled eggs are a garnish as much as an ingredient. Add them after the beans are dressed and fold gently, or the yolks break up and cloud the salad.
- YieldProbably enough for two or three as a side dish. Best assembled shortly before serving, as the dressed egg and beans weep on standing.
This comes from Alexander Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906), the work of a chef long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and the phrasing gives away its origins — "suppress all the water" is French kitchen English, a direct carry-over of supprimer l'eau. The dish itself is the plainest version of salade de haricots verts, a standing item of the French cold table, where beans dressed in vinaigrette and finished with egg served as a first course or an accompaniment to cold meat. What marks it as American and of its moment is the can: commercial canning of vegetables had become cheap and reliable by the turn of the century, and a cookbook aimed at hotel and household cooks alike could open a recipe with "open a pint can" without apology.