Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
String-beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and remove the strings from the string beans, then break them into 1-inch pieces.
Cook and finish
Cook the beans in boiling water with salt and the slice of fried salt pork for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, discard the pork, then add butter, flour, and pepper to the beans.
Stir well and serve in a vegetable dish.
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 + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,733 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + porktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,000 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
What each ingredient does
- Fresh string beans
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender during the long simmer.
- Salt pork
- Adds savory, smoky fat and seasoning to the cooking liquid, then is removed.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished beans.
- Flour
- Lightly thickens the cooking liquid so it clings to the beans.
The step that matters
Adding the flour with the butter. Flour stirred into hot liquid can clump if added unevenly. Stirring well helps it disperse and thicken the liquid smoothly instead of forming lumps.
Swap the beans
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, flour, pepper):
- Almondfits about as well
- Beansthe original
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Black-eyed peafits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, flour, pepper. 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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