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Salad

French Bean Salad

A salad of boiled French beans dressed with oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, and optional herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 589 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

French Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Boil the French beans whole until tender.

  2. Drain and dry them on a cloth.

  3. Once cold, place the beans in a bowl.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour salad oil over the beans and sprinkle with black pepper and salt.

  2. Add a few drops of wine vinegar and toss gently.

  3. If desired, add tarragon and chives.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beans + chivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beans + tarragontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

French beans
Form the main body of the salad and provide its crisp-tender texture.
Salad oil
Coats the beans, adding richness and carrying flavour from the seasonings.
Wine vinegar
Adds a light acidity that brightens the oil and seasonings.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the beans before dressing. Water left on the beans dilutes the oil and vinegar so the dressing will not cling well and can make the salad watery. Drying the beans fully lets the oil coat them evenly.

Swap the tarragon

The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pepper, wine, vinegar, chive):

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Rosemaryfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper, wine, vinegar, chive. 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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