Skip to main content
Main

String-beans

A creamy pork and string bean dish simmered with butter, flour, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

String-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans and pork

  1. Boil water in a pot and add the string beans and pork.

  2. Cook until the beans are tender, then drain them.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the butter and flour until smooth.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the drained beans.

  5. Stew for a few moments before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

String beans
Provide the main vegetable body and tender texture of the dish.
Cream
Forms the rich, smooth body of the sauce and adds moisture and fat.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce as it is mixed with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter and flour until smooth. Flour added to hot cream can clump if not fully blended with the butter first. Working it smooth before it thickens gives an even, lump-free sauce.

Swap the beans

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

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

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

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesGerman Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes