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Pickled String Beans

Pickled string beans are preserved in a vinegar and sugar brine with mustard and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and radish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the string beans, remove the strings, and cut off the ends.

  2. Boil the beans in water until tender but not breaking.

  3. Sprinkle the boiled beans with coarse sea salt.

  4. Drain the beans and cool them.

Pack and pickle

  1. Place the cooled beans in two‑quart glass jars.

  2. Add a spoonful of whole white mustard to each jar.

  3. Add a spoonful of grated horse‑radish to each jar.

  4. Heat enough vinegar to cover the beans.

  5. Add 1 cup of sugar for every quart of vinegar to the heated vinegar.

  6. Pour the hot vinegar over the beans in the jars.

  7. Cover the jars.

  8. Seal the jars.

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. Mustard + radishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  3. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Beans + radishtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Mustard + horsetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the crisp-tender body of the pickle, becoming tender when boiled but not falling apart.
Vinegar
Acidifies the brine, preserving the beans and giving the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar, adding sweetness to the brine.
Whole white mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavour to the pickling liquid.
Grated horse-radish
Contributes pungent heat that mellows as the beans sit in the brine.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar over the beans in the jars. The vinegar must be hot and cover the beans fully. Hot brine helps the jars seal and keeps the beans submerged, which limits spoilage by exposing them to air.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, horse, radish, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Lentilsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, horse, radish, vinegar, sugar. 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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