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String Beans with Cream

A dish of boiled string beans cooked with ham, butter, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

String Beans with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the string beans as directed in the preceding recipe.

Cook

  1. Put the beans in a saucepan of boiling water and add the ham.

  2. Boil gently for one hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the beans and remove the ham.

  2. Return the beans to the saucepan.

  3. Add the butter, cream, salt, and pepper.

  4. Stir well to combine and heat through before serving.

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

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

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Ham
Adds salty, savory flavour to the water and the beans during the long simmer.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the beans a silky, coating texture.

The step that matters

Heat the cream gently. Cream is an emulsion of fat and water that can split or curdle at a hard boil. Stirring it in and warming it through gently keeps it smooth and evenly coating the beans.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, cream, pepper. 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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