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String Beans and Eggs

A sautéed dish of string beans cooked with butter, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

String Beans and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cut the wax beans into ½ inch pieces.

  2. Boil the beans in salted water until tender, then drain.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add the beans and fry slowly for a few minutes.

  3. Add the slightly beaten eggs and stir until the eggs are cooked.

  4. Season with pepper and serve.

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. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Beans + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Wax beans
Provide the main bulk and tender texture of the dish.
Eggs
Set as they cook, binding the beans into a soft, cohesive mass.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the beans brown lightly in the skillet.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs until just cooked. Eggs set quickly with heat and turn rubbery or dry if overcooked. Removing them from heat while still slightly moist keeps the texture tender.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, 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.

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