Name: String Beans
Ingredients: string beans; water; salt pork; salt; butter

Why it works: Beans and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the strings from the beans and cut or break them into small pieces.

Cook

Cover the beans with water and boil.
Add a piece of salt pork to the water to improve the flavor.
When tender, remove the pork.

Season and serve

Add salt and butter to taste.
Drain off most of the water and serve.

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.

Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

String beans: Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through boiling.
Salt pork: Adds savory, smoky flavor to the cooking water as it simmers.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the cooked beans.