Why it works: Beans and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,134 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
String Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the string beans whole with a small piece of corned beef or pickled pork to season them.
Stew the mixture until nearly dry and serve hot.
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.
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Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,134 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- String beans
- Form the main body of the dish, absorbing the seasoning as they cook down.
- Corned beef or pickled pork
- Seasons the beans with salty, savoury flavour as they simmer and stew.
The step that matters
Stew until nearly dry. Cooking off most of the liquid concentrates the flavour of the beans and meat. Stopping too early leaves the dish watery and bland, while cooking too long can make the beans mushy.
“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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