Name: String Beans, Vinaigrette
Ingredients: string beans; vinaigrette sauce; lemon; parsley; gherkin

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

String Beans, Vinaigrette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare string beans as you would for a salad.
Serve with vinaigrette sauce.
Garnish with a slice of lemon dipped in chopped parsley.
Add a small gherkin cut in a fan shape.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,474 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beans + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,184 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 dish and provide the crisp, tender texture.
Vinaigrette sauce: Adds acidity and fat that moisten the beans and carry flavour.
Lemon: Adds bright acidity and aroma as a garnish.