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String-beans Sautes

A sauté of string beans cooked with broth, butter, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,799 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

String-beans Sautes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Trim and cut the string beans into short pieces.

  2. Cook the beans in boiling salted water until tender.

Finish in the broth

  1. Bring the broth to a boil.

  2. Season the broth well.

  3. Skim the broth for 15 minutes.

  4. Add the butter to the broth.

  5. Stir in the cooked beans.

  6. Shake for 3 minutes.

  7. Add the vinegar.

  8. Pour out to serve.

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 + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 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

String beans
Provide the main vegetable bulk and a tender-crisp texture.
Broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor that coats the beans.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a glossy finish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the broth and beans.

The step that matters

Cook the beans until just tender. Boiling beans only until tender keeps their bright green color and slight firmness. Overcooking breaks down the cell walls, leaving the beans soft, dull and mushy when they are later stirred into the broth.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Soybeanfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar. 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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