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Salad

String Bean Salad

A salad of tender string beans, onion, egg yolk dressing, and optional herbs or French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

String Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. String and break the beans into short pieces.

  2. Boil the beans in salted water until tender.

Make the salad

  1. Slice the onion lengthwise and mix it with the cooled beans.

  2. In a bowl, combine the egg yolk, butter, sour cream, and vinegar to achieve desired consistency.

  3. Mix the dressing with the beans just before serving.

  4. Chop the hard boiled egg finely for garnish.

  5. Optionally, sprinkle with minced herbs or serve with French dressing.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tender young string beans
Form the main body of the salad and provide its crisp-tender texture after boiling.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies with butter and sour cream to give the dressing a smooth, rich body.
Sour cream
Adds tangy richness and moisture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the dressing taste smooth and mellow.

The step that matters

Combine the dressing to the desired consistency. Egg yolk, butter and sour cream form an emulsion that can split or turn thin if mixed too hard or too fast. Adjust gently so the dressing stays smooth and clings to the beans.

Swap the beans

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

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

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

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