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String Beans

A boiled bean dish cooked with butter, flour, sweet cream, and optional salted pork, seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Sterrett, Laura C · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Snap and wash two quarts beans.

  2. Boil in plenty of water about fifteen minutes.

  3. Drain off.

  4. Put on again in about two quarts of boiling water.

  5. Boil an hour and a half.

  6. Add salt and pepper just before taking up.

  7. Stir in one and a half table-spoons butter rubbed into two table-spoons flour and half pint sweet cream.

  8. Boil a piece of salted pork one hour.

  9. Add beans.

  10. Boil an hour and a half.

  11. Boil shelled beans half an hour in water.

  12. Remove leaves, wash clean, being careful not to break off the little fibers and rootlets, as the juices would thereby escape and they would lose their color.

  13. Boil in plenty of water; if young, two hours; if old, four or five hours; try with a fork to see when tender.

Prepare and serve the cooked beans

  1. Take out.

  2. Drop in a pan of cold water.

  3. Slip off the skin with the hands.

  4. Slice those needed for immediate use.

  5. Place in a dish.

  6. Add salt, pepper, butter, and if not very sweet a teaspoon sugar.

  7. Serve with or without vinegar.

Keep in vinegar

  1. Put those which remain into a stone jar whole.

  2. Cover with vinegar.

  3. Keep in a cool place.

  4. Take out as wanted.

  5. Slice and serve.

  6. A few pieces of horseradish put into the jar will prevent a white scum on the vinegar.

Roast in ashes

  1. Roast in hot ashes.

  2. When tender, peel.

  3. Slice.

  4. Dress with salt, pepper, butter and vinegar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

979Calories
41 gProtein
46 gFat
97 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Pork100g cooked242
Vegetable1 tbsp (14g)120
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Beannot in our table0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Sterrett, Laura C. 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. See the original page.

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. Cream + buttertop 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 + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long simmering.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the cooking liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture with butter, giving it a smoother body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor into the beans.
Salted pork
Lends savory, salty flavor to the cooking liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the beans.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, testing with a fork. Beans cook at different rates depending on age, so timing alone can be misleading. Piercing with a fork shows when the starches have softened through, while overcooking turns them mushy and dull.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

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

More string beans recipes

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