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Green String Beans

A boiled and buttered string bean dish seasoned with salt and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,376 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Green String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. String the beans and cut them into narrow strips.

  2. Wash the beans and cook them in boiling water with baking soda until soft.

  3. Drain and rinse the beans thoroughly with cold water.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the beans to a hot kettle, add butter, and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Shake the kettle frequently until the beans are reheated.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped parsley 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. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 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, cooked until soft and tender.
Baking soda
Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping the beans keep their green color while softening.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the beans for a smooth, flavorful finish.

The step that matters

Cooking the beans with baking soda until soft. Baking soda makes the water alkaline, which keeps the green color bright but can make beans mushy if overcooked. Check them often and stop once they are just tender.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley. 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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