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Puree of String-beans

A creamy puree made from string beans, veal stock, butter, flour, and cream, served hot with optional fried fritters or croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Puree of String-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Add the knuckle of veal, water, salt pork, and onion to a pot and simmer for 5 hours to make a strong stock.

  2. Strain the stock through a sieve into a jar.

  3. Refrigerate the stock overnight to remove fat.

Make the puree

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan.

  2. When the butter bubbles, add the flour and cook without browning.

  3. Gradually stir in the hot cream and heated stock, then add the string-bean pulp.

  4. Mix well without boiling.

  5. Stir constantly while heating until hot.

Serve

  1. Serve topped with fried fritter-beans or croutons.

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

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour, and its melt starts the roux.
Flour
Cooked in the butter, it thickens the puree into a smooth, body-rich texture.
Hot cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the thickened puree.
String-bean pulp
Provides the main green flavour and body of the puree.
Veal knuckle stock
Supplies savoury depth and liquid that carries the puree.

The step that matters

Stir constantly without boiling. Flour thickens liquid only when it is stirred smoothly as it heats; stirring prevents lumps, and avoiding a boil keeps the cream from curdling or the starch from breaking down into a thin, grainy texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, butter, flour, cream. 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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