String Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Blanch string beans for no more than 3 minutes.
Cool the beans in cold running water for 20 minutes.
Salt and pack
Layer the beans in a barrel, covering each layer with coarse sea salt.
Pack the beans tightly and cover with fabric, boards, and a stone to press down.
Pour cold boiled water over the beans until fully submerged.
Make the brine
Drain the brine and boil it, ensuring it reaches 10-11 degrees Beaume, adding salt if necessary.
Once cooled, pour the brine back into the barrel.
Seal the barrel.
Fill it with fresh cold brine.
Cork the barrel.
Finish and use
Add ½ ounce of sulphate of copper to the blanching water.
Wash the salted beans in several changes of water for a few hours before using.
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
- The vegetable being preserved; blanching first sets its color and texture before salting.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the beans and inhibits spoilage microbes, which preserves them.
- Cold water
- Forms the brine that keeps the packed beans fully submerged and evenly salted.
The step that matters
Bringing the brine to 10-11 degrees Beaume. Beaume measures the brine's density, which reflects its salt concentration. Brine that is too weak cannot preserve the beans well and may let them spoil, so checking the reading before pouring it back matters.
“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.
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