Broad Beans, Mashed.—When broad beans get old, the only way to serve them is to have them mashed. Boil them, and remove the skins, then mash them up with a little butter, pepper, and salt, and rub them through a wire sieve, make them hot, and serve. You can if you like boil a few green onions and a pinch of savoury herbs with the beans, and rub these through the wire sieve as well. This dish is very cheap and very nourishing. Very young beans, like very young peas, are more nice than economical.

Beans à la Poulette.—Boil some young beans till they are tender, and put them into a saucepan with a little butter, sugar, pepper, and salt, and sufficient flour to prevent the butter cooking oily; stew them in this a short time, i.e., till they appear to begin to boil, as the water from the beans will mix with the butter and flour and look like thin butter sauce thicken this with one or two yolks of eggs, and serve.

Beans à la Bourgeoise.—Place the beans in a saucepan, with a piece of butter, a small quantity of shallot chopped fine, and a teaspoonful of savoury herbs; toss them about in this a little time, and then add a little water, sufficient to moisten them so that they can stew; add a little sugar, and when tender thicken the water with some beaten-up egg.

Beans, French, Plain Boiled.—French beans are only good when fresh gathered, and the younger they are the better. When small they can be boiled whole, in which case they only require the tips cut off and the string that runs down the side removed. When they are more fully grown they will require, in addition to being trimmed in this manner, to be cut into thin strips, and when very old it will be found best to cut them slanting. They must be thrown into boiling salted water, and boiled till they are tender. The time for boiling varies with the age; very young ones will not take more than a quarter of an hour, and if old ones are not tender in half an hour they had better be made into a purée. As soon as the beans are tender, drain them off, and serve them very hot; the chief point to bear in mind, if we wish to have our beans nice, is, they must be eaten directly they are drained from the water in which they are boiled. They are spoilt by what is called being kept hot, and possess a marvellous facility of getting cold in a very short space of time.