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Bean Pickles

Pickled green beans prepared by boiling, packing, and covering with spiced vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Green beans and pepper work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 369 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. String the green beans and place them in a kettle of salted water.

  2. Boil until tender, then drain in a colander.

Pack and cover

  1. Pack the beans lengthwise into glass jars.

  2. Sprinkle a little cayenne pepper over the beans.

  3. Cover the beans with spiced and sweetened strong vinegar to taste.

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. Green beans + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Green beans + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Green beans + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together115 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

Green beans
Form the main body of the pickle and supply the crisp-tender texture once boiled.
Strong vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the beans and gives the pickle its sharp flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat to the pickling liquid and beans.

The step that matters

Boiling the beans until tender. Boiling must stop once the beans are tender; overcooking makes them soft and mushy, while underdone beans stay tough and fail to absorb the vinegar well.

Swap the green beans

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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