Name: French Beans
Ingredients: French beans; butter; chopped parsley; shallots

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

French beans
butter
chopped parsley
shallots

Directions

Cut French beans into strips.
Boil the beans until tender.
Serve with melted butter and chopped parsley.
For Maitre d'hotel sauce, mix butter with chopped parsley and serve.
For Poulette sauce, prepare and serve as desired.
For black-butter sauce, prepare and serve as desired.
For aux fines herbes, mix butter with chopped parsley and shallots.
For sautéed beans, sauté in butter with chopped parsley.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beans + shallottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together147 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + shallottop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).