Skip to main content
Main

String Beans, Saute

Sautéed string beans cooked with butter, cream, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream 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, Saute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the string beans and cut them into 1‑inch lengths.

  2. Cook the beans in slightly salted boiling water for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the beans and place them in a deep frying pan.

Sauté and serve

  1. Add the butter, cream or milk, flour, salt, and pepper to the pan.

  2. Toss and shake the mixture over high heat for 5 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Butter + creamtop 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 + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

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, tender after boiling and then coated in the sauce.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, helping the sauce coat the beans.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the cream or milk into a light sauce that clings to the beans.

The step that matters

Tossing the beans over high heat. Flour thickens the cream or milk only as it heats and reduces, so the sauce can turn thin or grainy if the heat is too low or the mixture is left unstirred. Keeping it moving over high heat helps it thicken smoothly and coat the beans.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, flour, pepper. 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.

You might also like

German Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes