Why it works: Beans and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,443 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓
String Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Select young string beans and remove the strings from each side.
Break the beans into pieces about 1 inch long.
Cook
Boil the beans in slightly salted water until tender.
Optionally, mix with cooked carrots.
Optionally, cook with ribs of beef or lamb.
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.
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Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,443 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,134 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Young string beans
- Provide the main vegetable, whose tender texture becomes the dish.
Swap the carrot
The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, beef):
- Tomatofits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Welsh onionfits better
- Carrotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beans, beef. 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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