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To Preserve Beans

A method for preserving beans using salt, vinegar, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,799 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Preserve Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Gather beans when they are full size and pick them.

  2. Scald the beans for a few minutes without losing their color.

  3. Drain and cool the beans.

Pack and pickle

  1. Place them in a stone jar that holds 2 to 3 quarts, ensuring they are not closely packed.

  2. Add a handful of coarse sea salt to the water.

  3. The next day, discard the water and pour a stronger pickle made of 2 parts water and 1 part vinegar over the beans.

  4. Add 2 to 3 handfuls of coarse sea salt and pour melted butter over everything.

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

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

  2. Beans + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the main body of the preserve, so they should be full size and whole.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the beans and seasons them during preserving.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the stronger pickle, helping preserve the beans and sharpen their flavor.
Melted butter
Poured over the top to add a fat layer that helps seal the jar's contents.

The step that matters

Scalding the beans. Scalding for only a few minutes softens the beans and sets their color; overcooking causes them to lose green color and turn soft and dull.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Soybeanfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter. 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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