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Salad

Green Bean Salad

A salad of cold green beans dressed with olive oil, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Green beans and mustard work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 116 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Green Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine olive oil, vinegar, and prepared mustard, and mix well to create the dressing.

Dress the beans

  1. Pour the dressing over the cold green beans and toss to coat.

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 + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together116 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Green beans + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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 bulk of the salad and provide its crisp, fresh texture.
Olive oil
Carries flavor and coats the beans, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Prepared mustard
Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar so the dressing clings to the beans.

The step that matters

Dress the beans while they are cold. Tossing the cold beans with the dressing lets them absorb it evenly. Warm beans can soften and go limp, and the oil and vinegar separate if the dressing is not mixed well first.

Swap the green beans

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, vinegar, mustard. 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.

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