Learn about this recipe from our historic foodways staff, then try it at home
This recipe combines two comfort foods in one. The classic elements can be served at a holiday meal, or as a side dish at an everyday supper.
18th Century
Take a few beans, boil them tender; then take your stew pan, put in a piece of butter, when it is melted shake in some flour, and peel a large onion, slice it and fry it brown in that butter; then put in the beans, shake in a little pepper and a little salt, grate a little nutmeg in, have ready the yolk of an egg and some cream; stir altogether for a minute or two, and dish them up.
— Glasse, Hannah, “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple” 1796.
21st Century
Note: This is a two-part recipe as you see it here. The beans are done in the first recipe then the potatoes in the second. Combined together they make a neat and attractive dish.
Ingredients
- ¼ lb. green beans
- ½ stick butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 medium onion
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons (plus) cream
Instructions
- Cut your beans into 2 or 3 inch pieces and boil in water until medium tender in a stew pan.
- In a medium saucepan, melt the ½ stick of butter, shake in half of your flour and stir with a whisk.
- Peel the onion, cut it in half and cut those halves into thin slices. Put them into the butter and flour mixture. Fry your onion in this until golden.
- Drain the beans from the water and add to the onions and add the rest of the flour, salt and pepper. Stir well.
- Add the cream, or more if needed and stir well.
- Whip the egg yolk in a separate bowl and add this slowly to the beans as you stir over a medium heat. After a couple of minutes’ stirring, take it off the fire.
Beans Ragooed with Potatoes
18th Century
Boil two pounds of potatoes soft, then peel them, put them into a sauce pan, put to them half a pint of milk, stir them about, and a little salt; then stir in a quarter of a pound of butter, keep stirring all the time till it is so thick that you cannot stir the spoon in it hardly for stiffness, then put it into a halfpenny Welsh dish, first buttering the dish; heap them as high as they will lie, flour them, pour in a little melted butter over it, and then a few crumbs of bread; set it into a tin oven before the fire; and when brown, lay it in the middle of the dish (take great care you do not mash it), pour your ragoo round it, and send it to table hot.
21st Century
Ingredients
- 1 lb. potatoes
- ½ cup milk
- 4 tablespoons butter
- ½ tsp. salt (or a little more if you like)
- 2 tablespoons bread crumbs
Instructions
- Peel and boil the potatoes in water until soft.
- Drain and put them into a mixing bowl and mash them.
- As you mash the potatoes add the milk, half the butter and your salt. Continue to mash them till they are stiff.
- Mound the potatoes up in a pie plate and dust the flour over them, then drizzle over the rest of the butter melted and then top the whole with the bread crumbs.
- Brown the top of this mixture in the oven with the broiler on until the crumbs are brown and crisp.
- Gently place the potatoes in the center of your serving plate with a nice flat spatula. Then take your ragooed beans and spoon then nicely around the potatoes. You are ready to serve.