Name: French Beans, Salad
Ingredients: French beans; parsley; pimpernel; tarragon; salad dressing

Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

French Beans, Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the French beans until tender.
Drain the beans and let them cool.
Place the cooled beans in a dish.
Garnish with parsley, pimpernel, and tarragon.
Dress the salad with your choice of dressing.

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.

Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + tarragontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).