French Provincial Cooking (60 page)

To cook the spinach, pack it into a saucepan, either with just the water left in from its washing or, which is perhaps preferable, just a small amount of boiling water. Add salt when the spinach has shrunk somewhat and stir with a wooden spoon to eliminate the danger of the underneath layer sticking to the saucepan: 7 to 10 minutes’ steady cooking is enough. Turn it into a colander, press a plate down on top of it and on this put a weight. Leave it 3 or 4 minutes, then with the edge of the plate (don’t use a valuable one) and with the spinach still in the colander, make a few chopping movements so that the leaves are roughly divided and more liquid flows out. Return the spinach to a clean pan in which a lump of butter has been melted and heat for a few seconds. This is
épinards en branches
or
épinards au naturel
. Allow 1 lb. of spinach for two people.

If the spinach is to be served as a purée, it can be left to drain until quite cool, then squeezed dry with the hands and either sieved or, better still, very finely chopped. It is then heated up in a double saucepan with rather a lot of butter. In fact, there is scarcely any limit to the amount of butter which spinach will absorb.

Thoroughly wash 3 lb. of spinach in several waters. Only the coarse stalks should be removed. Cook in the usual way, in a large saucepan containing a small amount of already boiling water or, if you prefer the English system, with only the water left on the leaves after washing. Add salt only when the spinach has boiled down. Drain, and when cool squeeze as dry as possible, then sieve or chop finely. In a fireproof porcelain or enamel-lined saucepan, melt 2 oz. butter; stir in the spinach; when warm, add pepper, salt if necessary and a pinch of sugar. Stir in gradually about 4 oz. of boiling cream (use, if possible, double cream for this dish) and, if not to be served at once, cover the pan, put an asbestos mat underneath and turn the flame as low as possible to prevent the spinach from sticking to the pan. Served as a separate course, as it should be, this will serve four or five people. It is, I think, one of the most delicious vegetable dishes in the whole of French cookery. Any left over (but there seldom is any) can be reheated in a double boiler. A scrap of grated nutmeg can be included in the seasonings.

Cook very young broad beans exactly as for
haricots verts au beurre,
page 261, and serve them either as a separate dish or with a plain roast chicken. When they are fully grown, skin them after they are boiled and before heating them up in butter. In France, it is traditional to flavour broad beans with savory (
sarriette
), but this is a herb which is both peppery and bitter and, to my mind, spoils the flavour of the beans.

The tender pods of very young broad beans make an excellent purée. Top and tail the pods, break them into chunks and cook them in boiling salted water, with a couple of diced potatoes. Strain off the liquid (which can be used for making a potato soup) and put the vegetables twice through the
mouli.
Heat up in a double saucepan with a lump of butter, seasonings and a scrap of sugar. Stir in a tablespoon or two of cream before serving.

This makes a good background to fried or poached eggs or to lamb cutlets.

Boil 2 lb. of shelled broad beans and strain them, keeping a little of the water in which they have cooked.

Make a béchamel sauce according to the recipe on page 114, using the reserved liquid instead of part of the milk. Enrich the sauce with 3 to 4 oz. of cream, and when it is ready stir in 2 oz. of cooked ham or of unsmoked gammon cut into small strips. Add the beans (skinned, if they are old ones). Let them get thoroughly hot; stir in a little chopped parsley.

This is a slightly more refined version of the well-known
fèves au lard,
in which salt pork or bacon is used instead of the ham. If either of these are to be used, the pork must first be boiled and the bacon fried until the fat starts to run.

The dried white beans commonly sold in English grocers’ shops as haricot beans are small and of variable quality; they must be carefully chosen, preferably from a shop which has a large turnover so that there is little risk of their having been in stock for too long a period. Haricot beans should not be more than a year old, or they will be impossibly dry and hard. In a friend’s house in the country I was once asked to cook some haricot beans; after two days and two nights in the oven of the Aga they were still like little stones. I then thought to ask my hostess how long the beans had been in her store cupboard. ‘Oh, only about four years, I think,’ was the reply.

The new season’s beans come into the shops about October or November, and a variety sold under the brand name of ‘Trophy’ is one I have found reliable, but the best are the medium-sized oval ones called
Soissons,
which can be found in Soho shops, and these are the ones most commonly used in France for
cassoulets
and all haricot bean dishes. A variety called
Arpajon,
very small and round, are rather more like the kind known to us as haricot beans.

Early in the season 6 to 8 hours is sufficiently long to soak haricot beans; later 10 to 12 hours will be necessary, but if for some reason they have to be left longer, take care to change the water or the beans may start to ferment. Allow 2 to 3 oz. of beans per person.

Having soaked the beans, drain them, put them in a saucepan amply covered with fresh water, add a bouquet; cook steadily for about 1
hours after the water has come to the boil. Add salt only during the final 10 minutes. Drain, reserving the liquid for soup. Remove the bouquet.

For
lb. of beans, fry a couple of rashers of streaky bacon cut into little pieces, in a little extra fat or butter. Put in the beans with 2 tablespoons of meat stock or of the cooking liquid; heat gently; add 2 or 3 tablespoons of thick cream and a tablespoon of finely chopped parsley, and continue cooking until the sauce has thickened, shaking the pan rather than stirring, so as not to break the beans.

If you have a little left over roast lamb or pork, it can be used instead of the bacon.

Soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water. Drain them, put them in a saucepan and completely cover them with fresh cold water by about 2 inches.

For
lb. beans, add a piece of salt breast of pork or streaky bacon weighing about
lb. Put in a bayleaf and a sprig of thyme and, if you like, a crushed clove of garlic, tied together. Bring slowly to the boil and cook steadily, but not at a gallop, for 1
hours. Strain through a colander, reserving the cooking liquid. Remove the rind from the pork; cut it into small strips. Return the beans and pork to the saucepan and add just enough of their cooking liquid, or better still, if you have it, good meat stock, to keep them from sticking. About
pint is enough. Heat them gently. When they are bubbling, stir in a tablespoon of parsley butter (butter worked with very finely chopped parsley and flavoured with lemon juice). Turn off the heat and shake the pan until the butter has melted and amalgamated with the sauce.

Serve either as a dish on its own or with sausages.

Half a pound of beans is enough for three people, but it is worth cooking rather more than one needs for one meal. The beans left over, sieved, and heated up with the rest of the cooking liquid, and possibly a little stock added, make a good soup.

This way of cooking beans makes a dish which is a good background for eggs as well as a useful vegetable to serve with all kinds of meat and sausages.