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Preserve

String Beans

String beans packed in jars with water, sealed, and then cooked in the jars to preserve them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak string beans in cold salt water for 15 minutes.

  2. Restring the beans if necessary.

  3. Break the beans or keep them whole.

  4. Tie the beans in a cheesecloth bag.

Scald and pack

  1. Scald the bag in boiling water for 5 minutes.

  2. Plunge the bag into cold water to handle it.

  3. Pack jars tightly with beans.

  4. Fill the jars with clear cold water.

  5. Seal the jars well.

Process

  1. Cook the jars as you would tomatoes for 55 minutes.

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
The main vegetable; scalding and long heating soften its fibers into a tender texture.

The step that matters

Sealing and processing the jars. Heat must reach the centre of each jar and hold for the full time to destroy spoilage microbes. Poorly sealed jars or shortened processing can let food spoil in storage.

“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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