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String Beans

A boiled string bean dish seasoned with baking soda, salt, butter, pepper, and optional milk or flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 166 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. String the beans and cut them into half‑inch pieces.

  2. Wash the beans and cook them in boiling water with 1 teaspoon of baking soda for 15 minutes.

Cook

  1. Drain the beans and cook them again in fresh boiling water until tender.

  2. Once tender, add coarse sea salt, then boil until very tender.

Finish

  1. Add butter and pepper to taste, and stir in sweet cream or rich milk if desired.

  2. If using milk, dredge in wheat flour to thicken.

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. Beans + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, becoming tender as they cook through.
Baking soda
Raises the water's alkalinity, which softens the beans' skins and speeds breakdown during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that carries flavour and gives the beans a smooth mouthfeel.
Sweet cream or rich milk
Adds fat and creaminess to the cooking liquid for a richer, smoother finish.
Wheat flour
Thickens the cooking liquid, giving it body as starch gelatinises with heat.

The step that matters

Drain and re-cook in fresh boiling water. Baking soda softens the beans but can leave a soapy taste and bitter flavour in the cooking water. Draining and using fresh boiling water removes that residue before the final cook, so the beans finish clean-tasting and tender.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

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

More string beans recipes

Canned 17Pickled 11Creamed 9Boiled 6French 5German 3 See all 97 →

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