Skip to main content
Main

Savoury Bboad-beans

A dish of boiled broad beans sautéed with butter, white sauce, herbs, and a pinch of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Savoury Bboad-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Shell the broad beans.

  2. Boil the beans in salted water for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the beans in a sieve.

Cook and season

  1. In a sauté pan, melt the butter and add the beans and white sauce.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  3. Add the chopped parsley and tarragon.

  4. Simmer gently until the beans are tender.

  5. Dish up and garnish with fleurons or bread croûtons 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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Beans + tarragontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Broad beans
Form the main body of the dish, giving it its tender, vegetable texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the beans a smooth coating.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy body that binds the beans together.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green aroma and a light herbal flavour.
Tarragon
Adds a distinctive aniseed-like aroma that lifts the buttery flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the beans are tender. High heat can toughen the beans and break the butter and white sauce, which can separate or turn greasy. Gentle simmering lets the beans soften evenly while the sauce stays smooth and cohesive.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, pepper, sugar, parsley, tarragon. 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.

You might also like

German Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes