Why it works: Beans and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,080 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
String Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Snap and wash the string beans.
Cook the beans
Boil the beans in plenty of water for 15 minutes.
Drain the beans and pour 2 quarts of boiling water over them.
Boil for 1.5 hours.
Finish with cream
Add salt, oil, and flour that has been creamed together.
Stir in the sweet cream and mix well.
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.
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Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Beans + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,341 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- String beans
- Form the main body of the dish and supply its tender texture after long cooking.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid so the cream coats the beans rather than running off.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and body to the finished dish.
- Oil
- Adds fat that carries flavour and smooths the mixture with the flour.
The step that matters
Adding the flour and oil mixture. Flour must be fully blended with the fat before it meets the hot liquid, otherwise it clumps into lumps instead of thickening the dish evenly.
Swap the beans
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream):
- Almondfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Cashew nutfits better
- Beansthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream. 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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