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String Beans

String beans are boiled and seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, and optional baking soda.

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 ↓

String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the stem ends of the string beans and remove the strings.

  2. Cut the beans into 1‑inch pieces or diagonally into diamond shapes.

  3. Wash the beans.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the beans in boiling salted water for 1 to 3 hours until soft.

  2. Add salt during the last hour of cooking.

  3. If desired, add baking soda to preserve the bright green color.

  4. Drain the beans.

  5. Dot with soft butter seasoned with salt and pepper, or serve with Thin White Sauce.

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
Provide the main vegetable, which softens during long cooking to a tender texture.
Baking soda
Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping the beans keep a bright green color.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that coats the cooked beans and carries seasoning.

The step that matters

Adding baking soda. Baking soda makes the water alkaline, which helps keep chlorophyll green. Too much can soften the beans excessively and give them a mushy texture and off flavor, so measure it carefully and only add it if desired.

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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