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Bean Salad

A salad of boiled green beans seasoned with vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and pepper work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and cook

  1. Cut the green beans into small diagonal pieces.

  2. Boil the beans with a little salt and summer savory for 5 minutes.

  3. Transfer the covered kettle to a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Dress and serve

  1. Once cooled, mix the beans with vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.

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. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Green beans + summer savorytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Green beans
Form the main body of the salad and provide its crisp-tender texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the salad its sharp, bright flavor.
Oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the beans a smooth coating.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that softens the vinegar's sharpness.
Summer savory
Contributes an herbal aroma that flavors the beans as they cook.

The step that matters

Let the beans cool before dressing. Cooling the beans before adding the vinegar and oil lets them hold the dressing on their surface instead of softening further and absorbing it unevenly while hot.

Swap the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (summer savory, vinegar, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against summer savory, vinegar, pepper, sugar. 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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