Name: Bean Salad
Ingredients: wax beans; salt; cold water; dressing for chicken salad (without sugar)

Why it works: Beans and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,432 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Bean Salad

Ingredients

wax beans
salt
cold water
dressing for chicken salad (without sugar)

Directions

Slice wax beans lengthwise.
Boil beans in salted water until tender.
Cool beans quickly by pouring cold water over them to make them crisp.
Just before serving, pour over the dressing prepared for chicken salad, omitting 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.

Beans + chickentop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,432 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Beans + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,587 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chicken + sugartop 39% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,461 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).