AN EXCELLENT RECEIPT FOR FRENCH BEANS À LA FRANÇAISE.
Prepare as many young and freshly-gathered beans as will serve for a large dish, boil them tender, and drain the water well from them. Melt a couple of ounces of fresh butter, in a clean saucepan, and stir smoothly to it a small dessertspoonful of flour; keep these well shaken, and gently simmered until they are lightly browned, add salt and pepper, and pour to them by degrees a small cupful of good veal gravy (or, in lieu of this, of sweet rich cream), toss the beans in the sauce until they are as hot as possible; stir quickly in, as they are taken from the fire, the beaten yolks of two fresh eggs, and a little lemon-juice, and serve them without delay. The eggs and lemon are sometimes omitted, and a tablespoonful of minced parsley is added to the butter and flour; but this, we think, is scarcely an improvement.
Beans, 1 to 2 quarts: boiled 15 to 20 minutes. Butter, 2 oz.; flour, 1 dessertspoonful; salt and pepper; veal gravy, small cupful; yolks of eggs, 2; lemon-juice, a dessertspoonful.