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Beans Boiled

Beans boiled in salted water with savory, then served with sauce tournee, egg yolks, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beans Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Boil beans in salted water with a bunch of savory.

  2. Drain the beans and place them in a saucepan.

  3. Add 5 tablespoons of reduced sauce tournee.

Finish the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the yolks of 3 eggs with a little salt.

  2. Add a piece of fresh butter and stir constantly until thickened.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sauce + eggtop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sauce tournee
Provides a reduced, flavorful liquid base that gives the beans body and savoury depth.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as heat sets their proteins, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy, rounded mouthfeel and a silkier finish.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolks thicken gently as their proteins set with heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, it can scramble or curdle, so constant stirring over gentle heat keeps it smooth.

“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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