Part 129 (2/2)
FRENCH MODE OF COOKING FRENCH BEANS.
1091. INGREDIENTS.--A quart of French beans, 3 oz. of fresh b.u.t.ter, pepper and salt to taste, the juice of 1/2 lemon.
_Mode_.--Cut and boil the beans by the preceding recipe, and when tender, put them into a stewpan, and shake over the fire, to dry away the moisture from the beans. When quite dry and hot, add the b.u.t.ter, pepper, salt, and lemon-juice; keep moving the stewpan, without using a spoon, as that would break the beans; and when the b.u.t.ter is melted, and all is thoroughly hot, serve. If the b.u.t.ter should not mix well, add a tablespoonful of gravy, and serve very quickly.
_Time_.--About 1/4 hour to boil the beans; 10 minutes to shake them over the fire.
_Average cost_, in full season, about 1s. 4d. a peck.
_Sufficient_ for 4 or 5 persons.
_Seasonable_ from the middle of July to the end of September.
BOILED BROAD OR WINDSOR BEANS.
1092. INGREDIENTS.--To each 1/2 gallon of water, allow 1 heaped tablespoonful of salt; beans.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BROAD BEAN.]
_Mode_.--This is a favourite vegetable with many persons, but to be nice, should be young and freshly gathered. After sh.e.l.ling the beans, put them into _boiling_ water, salted in the above proportion, and let them boil rapidly until tender. Drain them well in a colander; dish, and serve with them separately a tureen of parsley and b.u.t.ter. Boiled bacon should always accompany this vegetable, but the beans should be cooked separately. It is usually served with the beans laid round, and the parsley and b.u.t.ter in a tureen. Beans also make an excellent garnish to a ham, and when used for this purpose, if very old, should have their skins removed.
_Time_.--Very young beans, 15 minutes; when of a moderate size, 20 to 25 minutes, or longer.
_Average cost_, unsh.e.l.led, 6d. per peck.
_Sufficient_.--Allow one peck for 6 or 7 persons.
_Seasonable_ in July and August.
NUTRITIVE PROPERTIES OF THE BEAN.--The produce of beans in meal is, like that of peas, more in proportion to the grain than in any of the cereal gra.s.ses. A bushel of beans is supposed to yield fourteen pounds more of flour than a bushel of oats; and a bushel of peas eighteen pounds more, or, according to some, twenty pounds. A thousand parts of bean flour were found by Sir II. Davy to yield 570 parts of nutritive matter, of which 426 were mucilage or starch, 103 gluten, and 41 extract, or matter rendered insoluble during the process.
BROAD BEANS A LA POULETTE.
1093. INGREDIENTS.--2 pints of broad beans, 1/2 pint of stock or broth, a small bunch of savoury herbs, including parsley, a small lump of sugar, the yolk of 1 egg, 1/4 pint of cream, pepper and salt to taste.
_Mode_.--Procure some young and freshly-gathered beans, and sh.e.l.l sufficient to make 2 pints; boil them, as in the preceding recipe, until nearly done; then drain them and put them into a stewpan, with the stock, finely-minced herbs, and sugar. Stew the beans until perfectly tender, and the liquor has dried away a little; then beat up the yolk of an egg with the cream, add this to the beans, let the whole get thoroughly hot, and when on the point of simmering, serve. Should the beans be very large, the skin should be removed previously to boiling them.
_Time_.--10 minutes to boil the beans, 15 minutes to stew them in the stock.
_Average cost_, unsh.e.l.led, 6d. per peck.
_Seasonable_ in July and August.
ORIGIN AND VARIETIES OF THE BEAN.--This valuable plant is said to be a native of Egypt, but, like other plants which have been domesticated, its origin is uncertain. It has been cultivated in Europe and Asia from time immemorial, and has been long known in Britain. Its varieties may be included under two general heads,--the white, or garden beans, and the grey, or field beans, of the former, sown in the fields, the mazagan and long-pod are almost the only sorts; of the latter, those known as the horse-bean, the small or ticks, and the prolific of Heligoland, are the princ.i.p.al sorts. New varieties are procured in the same manner as in other plants.
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