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Bean Salad

A salad of boiled green beans with onion, butter, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Green beans and onion work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 334 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice green beans lengthwise.

  2. Boil in salted water until tender.

  3. Drain and place in a dish.

Dress and serve

  1. Slice an onion over the beans.

  2. Heat butter, vinegar, and salt together.

  3. Pour the mixture over the beans.

  4. Serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Green beans + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Green beans + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Green beans + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green beans
Form the main body of the salad and provide its tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour across the beans.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dish and balances the butter.
Onion
Adds sharp aroma and flavour to the salad.

The step that matters

Boil in salted water until tender. Overcooking softens green beans into a mushy texture, while undercooking leaves them fibrous and raw-tasting. Stop when they are just tender so they keep some bite.

Swap the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More bean salad recipes

String 29Green 19French 11Kidney 11White 11Lima 6 See all 45 →

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