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Green Beans Creamed

A simple side dish of tender green beans cooked in butter and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Green Beans Creamed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the ends of the green beans and remove the strings.

  2. Cut the beans into narrow strips.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the beans in a saucepan of water without covering it, adding a pinch of baking soda.

  2. Once the beans are tender, drain them and return to the saucepan.

  3. Add butter, cream, salt, and pepper to the beans and stir to combine.

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

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

  2. Green beans + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

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

  3. Green beans + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 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. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Green beans
Provide the main vegetable body and the tender texture of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the beans.
Cream
Coats the beans and adds moisture and a smooth, creamy texture.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, helping the beans keep a bright green color while they cook.

The step that matters

Boil the beans uncovered with baking soda. Cooking the beans uncovered lets acidic compounds escape, while the small pinch of baking soda keeps chlorophyll green. Too much baking soda, however, softens the beans excessively and gives them a soapy taste, so the pinch must stay small.

Swap the green beans

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, 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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