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Beans, Boiled French

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

Beans, Boiled French

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut off the heads and tails of the beans, and remove the strings by cutting a thin strip on each side.

  2. Divide each bean into 4 or 6 pieces and place them in cold water with a little salt dissolved in it.

  3. In a saucepan, bring water to a boil and add salt and baking soda.

  4. Add the beans to the boiling water and cook uncovered until tender, ensuring they do not get smoked.

  5. Once tender, drain the beans in a colander.

  6. In a stewpan, combine the beans with stock, finely minced herbs, and sugar. Stew until tender and the liquid has reduced slightly.

  7. Beat the egg yolk with the cream and add to the beans, heating until just simmering.

  8. Serve hot with plain melted butter.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

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