Name: Stking Beans
Ingredients: yellow butter beans; boiling water; ½ teacup rich milk or cream; butter; pepper; salt

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stking Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cut off each end and remove the strings from both sides of the butter bean pods.
Cut the beans into strips lengthwise or across.
Boil the beans in water until perfectly tender, about 2 to 3 hours.
Drain the beans and pour over them the rich milk or cream.
Season with butter, pepper, and salt 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,266 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Butter + beanstop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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