Name: String Beans, with Fine Herbs
Ingredients: 1 pound string beans; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 shallots, finely chopped; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; A pinch of nutmeg; 2 tablespoons butter (for finishing); 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped; A few drops of lemon juice

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

String Beans, with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

Prepare the string beans as directed in a previous recipe.

Cook

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a flat saucepan over medium heat.
Add finely chopped shallots and sauté lightly.
Add the string beans, seasoning with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
Toss the beans over the heat until thoroughly warmed.

Finish and serve

Remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of butter, parsley, and lemon juice.
Toss until the butter is melted and everything is well combined.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 carry the buttery, herbed coating.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, coating the beans and carrying flavor.
Shallots: Add mild, sweet aroma as they soften in the butter.
Parsley: Adds fresh, green herbal flavor and color at the end.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before adding the finishing butter, parsley, and lemon juice. Butter that is added off the heat emulsifies smoothly into a glossy coating instead of separating or browning, and delicate parsley and lemon flavor fade with prolonged heat.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, lemon):

Chickpeafits better
Pistachiofits better
Chestnutfits better
Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, lemon. 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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String Beans, with Fine Herbs