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String Beans, Saute

Sautéed string beans with butter, cream, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

String Beans, Saute

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the string beans and cut them into 1-inch lengths.

Cook the beans

  1. Cook the beans in slightly salted boiling water for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the beans and place them in a deep frying pan.

Sauté and serve

  1. Add the butter, cream or milk, flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Toss and shake over high heat for 5 minutes, then serve.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Provide the main vegetable body and texture of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps coat the beans.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to form a light sauce around the beans.
Flour
Thickens the cream or milk so it clings to the beans instead of pooling.

The step that matters

Tossing over high heat. Flour thickened liquids can separate or stick if the heat is too low or the pan is overcrowded. Tossing and shaking over high heat keeps the sauce moving and lets it thicken evenly around the beans.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, flour, 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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