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Vegetables Puree of Beans

puree of beans
(from Domestic French Cookery by Eliz Leslie, 1836)

Ingredients:

a quart of beans​
salt​
butter​
pepper​
flour​
sweet-herbs​

Instructions:

Having strung and cut your beans till you have a quart, throw them into boiling water, with a little salt. Let them remain a quarter of an hour. Then drain them, and throw into cold water to green them. After they have lain half an hour in the cold water, take them out and drain them again.​
Put a large piece of butter into a stew-pan with some pepper, a little salt, and a spoonful of flour. Add your beans, and cover them with broth or warm water. Put in a bunch of sweet-herbs cut small, and stew the whole very slowly till it has dissolved into a mass. Then strain it. Put a piece of butter into the puree, and serve it up.​


Eliz Leslie was a 19th century American author known for her cookbooks and books on etiquette. Her books were very popular.
 
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This is interesting! :D These wouldn't be leather britches, would they? I know they are something of a regional taste, though - I like them the way granny made them in SC. It cooked a good while!
 
Puree of Beans sounds like 'whirled' beans they give you in a hospital. YERK!!!
*edited for coyright
 
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diane that is good question. However, I was thinking with term Puree it like when I made baby food from green beans, peas, and carrots for my children.

For those who don't know what leather breeches beans are: "String tender green beans. Fill a long strong thread. Push the needle through the center of the bean, pushing the beans together at the end of the thread, from knot to needle. Hang up the string by one end in the warm air, but not in direct sunlight. This gives the beans a better flavor. Let them remain hanging until the beans are dry. Store in a bag until ready to use."

"To Cook leather breeches beans: Sometimes during the winter take a string of dried green beans down, remove the thread, and drop them in a pot of scalding water. Then add "a good hunk 'a meat" (ham, pork, or the like, depending on your taste) and cook all morning."


From : "The Foxfire Book", p. 175. and 167.
 
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