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French Beans A. LA Poulette

A dish of French beans cooked with butter, onions, flour, soup, herbs, egg yolks, cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

French Beans A. LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the beans and remove the fiber.

  2. Cut larger beans to match the size of the smaller ones.

  3. Boil the beans in a pot of water with a handful of salt until tender.

  4. Transfer the beans to cold water, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew-pan, melt butter and fry the diced onions until white.

  2. Sprinkle in flour and let it stew for a few minutes without browning.

  3. Add soup, parsley, scallions, salt, and pepper. Stir and bring to a boil.

  4. Thicken the sauce with beaten egg yolks mixed with cream.

  5. Just before serving, add lemon juice.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion base into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Butter
Carries the onions' flavor and adds richness to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and softness, helping the yolk thickening stay smooth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if the sauce boils after they are added they can scramble and curdle. Add them off the heat or at low heat, and stir constantly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, egg, cream):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, egg, cream. 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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