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Stking Beans

A dish of yellow butter beans simmered in milk or cream, seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stking Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off each end and remove the strings from both sides of the yellow butter bean pods.

  2. Cut the beans into strips lengthwise or across.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the beans in boiling water and cook until perfectly tender, about 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Drain the beans before serving.

  3. Pour ½ cup of rich milk or cream over the beans and season with butter, pepper, and salt.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Butter + beanstop 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

Yellow butter beans
Provide the main body and starchy, tender texture of the dish.
Rich milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the beans a creamy coating.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, enriching the creamed beans.

The step that matters

Cooking until perfectly tender. Dried or mature beans need long, gentle cooking for starches to soften fully. Stopping early leaves them firm and chalky, while the creamy texture depends on the beans being fully tender before the milk is added.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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