Mustard bean

These home-canned mustard beans are delicious on the side of a plate of summer salads, or a roast dinner in the winter. A few spoonfuls of this pickle also enliven a potato or pasta salad.

This recipe makes a lot so you may wish to cut the recipe in half.

See also Mustard Pickle, and Sweet Mustard Pickle.

This recipe is from Bernardin.

The recipe

If you wish to adjust batch size, do the math first on paper.

Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz) OR half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz)

Processing method: Water bath or steam canning

Yield: 7 x half-litre (US pint) jars

Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)

Processing time: 15 minutes (all jar sizes)

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Mustard bean

Yield: 7 x half-litre (1 US pint) jars

Course Pickles

Cuisine American

Keyword Beans, Mustard

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes

Servings 7 x half-litre (1 US pint) jars

Calories 68kcal

Metric - US Customary

Ingredients

• 1.25 kg green beans (trimmed, chopped. About 11 cups/ 2 ¾ lbs. Measurements after prep.)
• 200 g red bell pepper (Washed, seeded, finely-chopped. About 1 ¼ cups / 7 oz . 1 large one. Measurements after prep.)
• 600 g onion (finely chopped. 4 cups / 1 ⅓ pounds. 4 medium. Measurements after prep.)
• 4 tablespoons mustard powder
• 4 tablespoons salt
• 4 tablespoons Clearjel (½ cup / 2.5 oz. OR flour)
• 1 tablespoon ginger (ground)
• 1 teaspoon turmeric (ground)
• 650 ml white vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 2.5 cups / 20 oz)
• 600 g sugar (white. 3 cups / 24 oz)
• 125 ml water (½ cup / 4 oz)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

• Wash the beans, top and tail, and chop into pieces 4 cm (1 ½ inches) long.
• EITHER set aside as is, OR see blanching option in recipe notes.
• Prep the pepper and onion; set aside (you can combine the pepper and the onion).
• In a large pot, mix together everything from the mustard powder down to the turmeric.
• Add in the vinegar, water and sugar OR liquid stevia. Whisk smooth.
• Stir in the blanched beans (drained well), pepper and onion.
• Put over medium high-heat, bring to a boil, then lower to a steady simmer for 5 minutes stirring constantly so you don't get burning on the bottom.
• Pack hot into quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars or half-litre (US pint) jars.
• Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace for either size jar.
• Debubble, adjust headspace.
• Wipe jar rims.
• Put lids on.
• Process in a water bath or steam canner.
• Process either size jar for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
• Best after at least a month of jar time.

Nutrition

Serving: 4g | Calories: 68kcal | Carbohydrates: 16.2g | Protein: 0.9g | Fat: 0.3g | Sodium: 503mg | Fiber: 1.2g | Sugar: 13.5g

Reference information

How to water bath process.

How to steam can.

When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.

Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.

Recipe notes

• You can use pulse setting on a food processor to chop the pepper and onion.
• Taste before you bottle it; if you are using liquid stevia, you can stir in another teaspoon or two (but not sugar, it wouldn’t dissolve properly at this point), or some more salt OR salt substitute, if you wish at this point.
• You can use green or yellow beans or a combination of both.
• You can use Clearjel or flour. (Yes, normally it is verboten to do that, but see discussion under Source for the authorization on that.) You may also use less flour, if desired. To be clear, the flour meant would be plain or all-purpose white (or unbleached) wheat flour: not whole-wheat, not self-rising, not soy flour, etc.
• Instead of the salt, you can use a non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub. We have found Herbamare Sodium-Free performs well in that regard.
• You can reduce the sugar, or use the same volume amount of granulated Splenda®, or use 3 teaspoon2 of liquid stevia. For stevia, we’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia.
• If you find sauce too thick for your liking, and it certainly can come out thick at times, you can thin it with more heated 5% or higher vinegar (zap in microwave, mind the surge when removing.) Or, cut back on the Clearjel or flour — yes, it is fine to reduce that.

Blanching option

Blanching option for beans: Put the beans in a good-sized pot, Add enough water to cover, then bring to a boil, then lower heat to a medium-boil and cook beans for about 2 to 4 minutes, or, just until they are barely fork tender. Drain, and plunge into very cold water to stop the cooking. Leave there for a few minutes.

The original version of the recipe does not call for the beans to be blanched; just put in raw. However, our testers found the raw, grassy taste and texture unappealing in an otherwise semi-cooked mustard pickle product. We wrote to Bernardin and asked if blanching the beans would be permissible, and were told “the beans can certainly be blanched prior to making this recipe.” ^[1]Chef Emerie Brine to Randal Oulton. 2 February 2016. Email on file. So, we have added this blanching option. You can see which your crowd prefers. Commercial frozen green beans from a bag, thawed but not heated, might work as well as they are blanched at the factory.

Recipe source

Mustard Beans. Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Bernardin Ltd. 2013. Page 75.

Mustard Beans. In: Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto, Canada: Robert Rose Inc. 2015. Page 309.

Modifications made:

• Blanched the beans;
• Increased vinegar by 125 ml / ½ cup  / 4 oz to make sauce less thick in sugar-free version.

The Ball / Bernardin Complete Book version calls for 4 tablespoons of Clearjel; the same recipe in the Bernardin Guide calls for 8 tablespoons of flour instead. So you can use either. The Complete authors explain that they feel that Clearjel gives a “smoother texture.” And it does.

Nutrition information

Serving size: 4 tablespoons (approx 50 g)

Regular version

Per 4 tablespoons:

• 68 calories, 503 mg sodium.

Sugar and salt-free version

Per 4 tablespoons:

• 21 calories, 3 mg sodium.
• Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 0 points.

* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com

* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.

* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.

* Herbamare ® is a registered trademark of the A. Vogel Corporation.

* Pickle Crisp ® is a registered trademark of the Jarden Corporation.