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French or Kidney Beans

A dish of boiled and sautéed French or kidney beans seasoned with salt, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

French or Kidney Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cut off the stalks and remove the fiber from both sides of the beans.

  2. Slice the beans into thin strips lengthwise and soak them in cold water.

Boil

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

  2. Drain the beans and add them to the boiling water.

  3. Boil the beans uncovered until tender, about 15 minutes for young beans or up to 30 minutes for older beans.

  4. Drain the beans in a colander.

Sauté and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the beans until coated.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and sugar while sautéing.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Kidney beans + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together186 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Kidney beans + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together224 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh french or kidney beans
Provide the main vegetable, becoming tender through boiling and then sautéing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the beans and carrying flavor during sautéing.
White sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savory salt and butter.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, not longer. Older beans need up to 30 minutes, and overboiling makes them soft and mushy. Testing for tenderness during boiling keeps their texture pleasant before they are sautéed.

Swap the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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