Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
String- Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the beans
Boil the beans in 2 quarts of boiling water for 1½ hours.
Drain the beans and return them to the pot.
Stir in salt and pepper.
Make the sauce and serve
Rub the butter into the flour.
Mix the butter‑flour mixture with the sweet cream.
Add this mixture to the beans and stir well before serving.
Alternative with salted pork
Alternatively, boil a piece of salted pork for 1 hour.
Add the beans to the pork and boil for another 1½ hours.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + porktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Cream + porktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,093 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Thickens the cream sauce when combined with melted or softened butter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, helping to smooth the flour into the sauce.
- Sweet cream
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds richness and body.
The step that matters
Rub the butter into the flour. Working the fat evenly into the flour coats the starch particles so they disperse smoothly rather than forming lumps when the cream is added.
“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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