Why it works: Beans and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,799 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
French Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Gather the youngest and clearest French beans on a fine day and wipe them well.
Place the beans in a stone jar, layering them with table salt until the jar is full.
Press the beans down, place a piece of slate on top, add more salt, and tie a bladder over it.
Store the jar in a dry cellar.
When ready to use, remove some beans, wash them in cold water, and soak in fresh cold water for 24 hours.
Boil the beans in plenty of water, adding a lump of butter while cooking.
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.
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Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,799 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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