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French, String and Wax Beans

A boiled bean dish using string or wax beans, butter, sweet cream, and optional salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

French, String and Wax Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Snap the beans when bent, string them, break off the ends, and cut into 2 or 3 pieces.

  2. Soak the beans in cold water for 15 minutes, then drain.

Cook

  1. Boil salted water in a pot, add the beans, cover, and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Uncover and cook for an additional 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the type of beans.

  3. Cook a piece of salt pork with the beans.

Finish and serve

  1. If the beans are nearly dry, do not drain; add butter, sweet cream, and more salt if needed.

  2. Remove the pork and drain the water before serving with cream or cream sauce.

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

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

  2. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  3. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Cream + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

String or wax beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they simmer for a long time.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked beans.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, softening the flavour and giving a creamy coating.

The step that matters

Draining only when the beans are not nearly dry. Beans cooked in very little liquid can scorch and stick, and the cooking water carries flavour. Draining is skipped when the beans are nearly dry so they keep their moisture and fat, while draining excess water when there is more liquid keeps the dish from being watery.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, pork. 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.

More french beans recipes

Boiled 29Pickled 12Preserved 9Plain 4Stewed 4Creamed 3 See all 54 →

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