Name: String Beans
Ingredients: 2 lbs coarse sea salt; 10 gallons water; ½ ounce sulphate of copper (optional, for color)

String Beans

Ingredients

2 lbs coarse sea salt
10 gallons water
½ ounce sulphate of copper (optional, for color)

Directions

Prepare the beans

Blanch string beans for 1 to 3 minutes depending on size.
Cool the beans in cold running water.

Make the brine

Prepare a brine by dissolving 2 lbs of coarse sea salt in 10 gallons of boiling water for 2 minutes.
Strain the brine through a flannel cloth.
Dip the cans or jars in the cold brine.

Seal and process

Seal the jars airtight and process them.
Process pints for 6 minutes, quarts for 12 minutes, half gallons for 15 minutes, and gallons for 15 minutes at 232°F (111°C).

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

String beans (in the method): Make up the vegetable itself, which is the main food being preserved.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the beans and makes the brine that is used to preserve them.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.