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Easy Garden Green Beans

"This is a flavorful, simple way to dress up plain steamed green beans for an easy side dish that practically cooks itself while you are getting the rest of the meal together."

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Why it works: Green beans and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 203 recipes mention both. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep10 min
Cook10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat, then add the trimmed green beans and cook for 4 to 5 minutes until just tender-crisp.

  2. Drain the beans well and transfer them to a large bowl.

  3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, add the sliced garlic, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring, until fragrant and lightly golden, not browned.

  4. Pour the warm garlic oil over the green beans, then add the white wine vinegar, a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground black pepper, and toss to coat.

  5. Add the grated Parmesan and chopped parsley, toss again, and serve warm.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Green beans + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together203 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. White wine + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (green beans, olive, garlic, pepper, white wine, vinegar, parmesan cheese):

  1. Basilbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Rosemaryabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against green beans, olive, garlic, pepper, white wine, vinegar, parmesan cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).