Skip to main content
Main

String-beans

Creamed string beans cooked with cream, butter, flour, pepper, salt, and optional pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

String-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut each string bean crosswise into two or three pieces.

Cook the beans

  1. Put the beans and a little pork into boiling water.

  2. Cook until tender.

  3. Drain the beans.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Combine cream, butter, flour, pepper, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until hot.

  3. Add the drained beans to the cream mixture.

  4. Stew for a few moments before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  3. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the main body of the dish and carry the texture once cooked until tender.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, body-rich liquid that coats the beans.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a silkier mouthfeel in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream as its starch swells with heat, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Heating the cream mixture. Flour thickens cream only as its starch swells with gentle heat and is well blended in. Cream can scorch or separate if it boils hard, so keep the heat moderate and stir while it warms.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, flour, pepper, pork):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, pepper, pork. 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 string beans recipes

Canned 17Pickled 11Creamed 9Boiled 6French 5German 3 See all 97 →

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes