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Salad

Bean Salad, German

A salad of boiled string beans, onion, ham or pork drippings, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Bean Salad, German

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the string beans in salted water until tender.

  2. Drain the water from the beans.

  3. Slice the onion finely and add it to the beans.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the dressing made of vinegar and ham fat over the beans.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix thoroughly.

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 salad and soften through boiling to become tender.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that cuts through the richness of the fat.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the salad its tangy, sharp character.
Ham or pork drippings
Supplies fat that carries flavor and coats the beans in the dressing.

The step that matters

Draining the beans before dressing. Water left on the cooked beans dilutes the vinegar and fat dressing, so it fails to coat them and tastes weak. Draining well lets the dressing cling to the beans.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, ham, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Lentilsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, ham, vinegar, 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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