Name: Emmitt Smith's Sour Cream Green Beans
Ingredients: 2 pounds green beans; 1 medium onion, thinly sliced; 1 tbsp parsley, chopped; 2 tbsp melted butter or margarine; 2 tbsp flour; 2 tsp lemon rind, grated; 1 tsp salt; ¼ tsp pepper; 1 cup lite sour cream; 1 cup buttered bread crumbs

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Green beans: Provide the main vegetable body and bulk of the dish.
Sour cream: Adds creamy moisture and a tangy flavour that coats the beans.
Flour: Thickens the butter and onion mixture into a smooth sauce that holds the beans together.
Butter: Carries the onion and parsley flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Bread crumbs: Form a golden, crisp topping as the dish bakes.

The step that matters

Stir the flour in until bubbly. Flour must be cooked briefly in the hot butter to remove its raw taste and to thicken evenly. Stirring constantly prevents lumps and scorching before the sour cream is added.

Swap the green beans

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

Shallotfits better
Leekfits better
Okrafits better
Green beansthe original

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

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Emmitt Smith's Sour Cream Green Beans