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String Beans with Cheese

A baked dish of boiled string beans topped with cheese and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

String Beans with Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil string beans in water with baking soda until soft. Drain thoroughly.

Make the cheese beans

  1. Add grated rarebit cheese and heavy cream, then season with salt and cayenne. Stir and transfer to a buttered baking dish.

Top and serve

  1. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and dot with butter. Reheat before serving.

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. Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,041 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 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 bulk of the dish, softened by boiling until tender.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, helping the bean pods soften during boiling.
Rarebit cheese
Adds fat and savory flavor, melting into a creamy coating for the beans.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, smoothing the cheese into a silky sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds a sharp, savory flavor and browns on top for color.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown lightly.

The step that matters

Drain the beans thoroughly. Excess water left on the beans dilutes the cheese and cream mixture, so it can turn thin and watery instead of clinging to the beans.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Lima beansfits less well
  4. Almondfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, cream, pepper, parmesan cheese, butter. 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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