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Rich Green Beans

A savory green bean dish cooked with parsley, onion, gravy, broth, and thickened with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rich Green Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook and drain the green beans.

  2. Heat some grease in a stewpan and add the parsley and sliced onion.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the beans and let them stew for 10 minutes.

  2. Moisten with gravy and broth, then cook for 15 minutes over low heat.

  3. Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks.

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  2. Green beans + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together334 recipes

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

  3. Green beans + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Green beans
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the flavour of the sauce as they stew.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy coating through gentle heat-setting.
Gravy
Adds liquid and savoury flavour that moistens the beans as they cook.
Broth
Adds liquid and savoury depth, helping the beans simmer tender in the sauce.
Onion
Softens while cooking and adds sweetness and aroma to the base.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if the sauce gets too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily so the sauce becomes smooth and coats the beans.

Swap the green beans

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, onion, butter, egg. 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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