Name: String Beans, Poulette
Ingredients: string beans; 2 tablespoons butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; nutmeg; 2 tablespoons Allemande sauce; lemon juice; chopped parsley

Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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, Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the string beans as directed in a previous recipe.
In a saucepan, combine the string beans and butter.
Season with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and nutmeg.
Warm thoroughly, then add the Allemande sauce and toss well.
Before serving, add a few drops of lemon juice and sprinkle 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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the beans

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

Chickpeafits better
Pistachiofits better
Chestnutfits about as well
Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, sauce, lemon, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.