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Bean Pickles

Pickled butter beans prepared with vinegar, sugar, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Bean Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cut the butter beans.

  2. Clean the butter beans.

  3. Sprinkle the beans with coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover the beans with water.

  5. Scald the beans until tender.

  6. Drain the beans well.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, turmeric, and ground mustard with a little vinegar to make a smooth paste.

  2. Add the remaining vinegar, brown sugar, and celery seed to the mixture.

  3. Pour the dressing over the beans.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Pack the jars

  1. Pack the hot mixture into gem 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Celery + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beans + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together419 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

Butter beans
Form the bulk of the pickle and provide its firm, tender texture.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the beans.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the dressing to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Flour
Thickens the dressing into a smooth sauce that coats the beans.
Turmeric
Gives the dressing its yellow colour and a mild, earthy aroma.
Ground mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Mix the flour, turmeric, and mustard into a smooth paste with a little vinegar. Flour thickens only when its starch is evenly hydrated, so dry lumps left in the paste will stay floury. Blending with a small amount of liquid first lets the starch disperse before the rest of the vinegar is added.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beans, vinegar, sugar, mustard, flour, turmeric):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beans, vinegar, sugar, mustard, flour, turmeric. 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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