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Pickled String-beans

Pickled string beans preserved in hot spiced vinegar with alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,347 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Pickled String-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak young, tender beans in strong brine overnight.

  2. Drain and dry the beans.

  3. Fill jars with the beans.

Pickle and store

  1. Cover the beans with hot spiced vinegar mixed with 1 teaspoon of powdered alum for every quart of vinegar, ensuring the vinegar fully covers the beans.

  2. Cork the jars and store them for at least 6 weeks.

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 + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Provide the crisp, firm texture that the pickling brine is meant to keep.
Powdered alum
Helps the beans stay firm and crisp in the vinegar.
Hot spiced vinegar
Acidifies the beans and carries the spiced flavor into them as they pickle.

The step that matters

Ensure the vinegar fully covers the beans. Beans exposed to air above the liquid can spoil or mold, and submerged beans pickle evenly. Full coverage keeps the whole batch preserved and uniformly flavored.

“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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