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Salad

String Bean Salad

A salad of boiled string beans with onion, vinegar, pepper, and optional bacon grease.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

String Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. String the beans and cut them lengthwise.

  2. Boil the beans in salted water until tender, then drain.

Dress and serve

  1. Add the sliced onion, vinegar, and pepper to the beans.

  2. If desired, add a little bacon grease before mixing in the onion and vinegar.

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. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the main body of the salad and carry the texture once boiled until tender.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the cooked beans.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the salad and sharpens its overall flavor.
Bacon grease
Adds fat and savory flavor that coats the beans; optional in this recipe.

The step that matters

Drain the beans well after boiling. Beans left wet dilute the vinegar and dressing, so the salad tastes watery and the acidity is weakened. Draining thoroughly lets the dressing cling to the beans.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Soybeanfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, 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.

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