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String Beans, a L'Anglaise
Open a pint can of string beans; drain the water off, plunge them into boiling water for five minutes. Drain on a sieve; place in a saucepan with a teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper and one ounce butter; divide into small bits, mix well with a fork while heating for a few seconds, then serve on a vegetable dish.
A method for dressing canned beans, from an era when tinned vegetables were a mark of a well-stocked pantry rather than a compromise. The seasoning as written is heavy-handed; the timing is the other thing to fix.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is half a teaspoon. That is a lot of pepper for a pint of beans; a quarter teaspoon is closer to modern taste.
- Cut the saltA full teaspoon of salt on top of already-brined canned beans will overwhelm them. Taste first and season by pinches, especially if the can lists salt.
- Five minutes is too longCanned beans are fully cooked in the tin. A brief plunge into boiling water to rinse away the canning liquid and warm them through — thirty seconds to a minute — is enough. Five minutes leaves them limp.
- A pint canAbout 16 oz, close to a standard modern can. Enough for two, or three as a small side.
- One ounce butterTwo tablespoons. "Divide into small bits" most likely refers to the butter, cut up before adding so it coats the beans as it melts rather than pooling.
- With fresh beansIf you use fresh instead, boil trimmed beans in well-salted water for three to five minutes until just tender, drain, and finish with the butter and pepper the same way.
"À l'anglaise" in French kitchen usage means plainly boiled and dressed with butter, in contrast to the sauced treatments of the French repertoire. Its appearance here with a can opener in the first line is telling: commercially canned string beans were cheap and available year-round, and household books of this sort were content to build a dish around them. The instruction to plunge the drained beans into fresh boiling water plausibly addresses a known complaint of early canning — the flat, metallic taste of the packing liquid.