String Beans Stewed Down in Tomato, Onion, and Clove
Not every heritage green bean recipe runs through smoked meat. Savory string beans builds its flavor somewhere else entirely: shredded onion cooked soft in butter, a pint of strained stewed tomato, and two whole cloves that give the pot a warm, almost spiced edge you do not expect from a bean dish.
The instruction that makes it work is right there in the original text. Season highly. Tomato flattens fast, and this recipe wants salt, pepper, cayenne, clove, and a little sugar pushed further than feels natural. It serves six.
Ingredients
- 2 medium onions, shredded
- 2 tablespoons butter or fat
- 1 pint strained stewed tomato
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- Dash of cayenne
- 2 whole cloves
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 quart canned or freshly cooked string beans
Makes: 6 servings
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Shred the onions and sauté them in the butter or fat until tender and yellow.
- Add the strained stewed tomato.
- Season highly with the salt, pepper, cayenne, cloves, and sugar.
- When the mixture comes to a boil, add the canned or freshly cooked string beans.
- Simmer 10 to 15 minutes.
- Add a little more butter, and serve hot.
Pro Tips & Suggestions
- Take “season highly” literally. Taste it once the tomato is in and push the salt and cayenne past where you would normally stop.
- Tomato sauce or canned tomato soup can stand in for the stewed tomato. If you use soup, dilute it by half and adjust the seasoning from there.
- Pull the cloves before serving. Two is plenty, and nobody wants to bite one.
- Using fresh beans? Blanch them until just tender first, so they finish in the tomato instead of going gray in it.
- The sugar is not for sweetness. Two teaspoons balances the acid in the tomato. Leave it in.
About the Creator
This page comes out of the era when a home cook’s pantry was built around what could be put up or bought in a can, and a good vegetable recipe was judged by whether it could make a plain quart of beans worth sitting down to. The tomato, onion, and clove combination shows up across community and church cookbooks of the period, and it is the reason this one still holds up.
The clipping carries no byline, which was common for cookbook pages of the time.
Where to Find This Recipe
This recipe was retyped from a vintage cookbook page. The specific volume has not yet been identified, and Black Foodie Finder is still tracing it.
The clipping surfaced through the vintage recipe archive kept by @therealblackhistorian.