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French Beans Sautes

A sauté of string beans flavored with butter, pepper, French mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Beans Sautes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the fibers from both sides of the string beans and clip them into short pieces.

  2. Boil the beans in hot salted water until tender, then drain them well.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and season with pepper, a little French mustard, and 1 tablespoon of vinegar.

  2. Add the beans to the saucepan and toss until they are very hot and glazed with the butter.

  3. Serve in a deep dish.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 and carry the buttery glaze.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating that clings to the beans.
French mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent note that balances the richness of the butter.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavor.

The step that matters

Toss the beans until very hot and glazed. Tossing the drained beans in the warm butter mixture coats them evenly and heats them through. Beans added while wet or cool will dilute the sauce and taste flat.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Lentilsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, mustard, 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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