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Canned String-beans

Canned string beans cooked with butter, salt, pepper, and optional water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Canned String-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the string beans into neat lengths.

Cook

  1. Cook the beans in their own liquid for 30 minutes or until very tender.

  2. If there isn't enough liquid to cover the beans, add a little cold water while cooking.

  3. Stir in a small amount of butter, salt, and pepper when almost done.

  4. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Drain off the liquid and serve the beans on a hot dish with a bit of butter on top.

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. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  2. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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
Form the main body of the dish, becoming very tender through long cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the finished beans.

The step that matters

Cooking until very tender. String beans need a long, slow cook to soften their fibrous cell walls fully. Stopping early leaves them tough and stringy, so check for tenderness before draining.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper):

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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