Name: French Beans, a LA Pouhite
Ingredients: 1 lb French beans; 3 pints water; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 oz butter; 1 teaspoon flour; 1 large cup of the liquor the beans were boiled in; 2 egg yolks; 1 oz butter; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley

Why it works: Beans and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,376 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

French Beans, a LA Pouhite

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

Choose young and tender French beans.
Wash them in cold water.
Boil 3 pints of water with 1 teaspoon of salt in a saucepan. Add the beans.
Boil uncovered to keep them green.
Once done, drain the beans carefully.

Make the sauce

Melt 1 oz of butter with 1 teaspoon of flour in a stewpan. Stir for 3 minutes.
Pour in 1 cup of the liquid the beans were boiled in. Add salt. Stir over the fire for 10 minutes.
Beat 2 egg yolks. Add the beaten yolks to the sauce, but do not let it boil.
Gradually add 1 oz of butter. Add 1 teaspoon of chopped parsley.

Finish and serve

Add the beans. Stir well until thoroughly hot. 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.

Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

French beans: Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and bright green.
Butter: Enriches the sauce with fat and rich flavour, giving it a smooth body.
Flour: Thickens the butter and cooking liquor into a smooth sauce.
Egg yolks: Emulsify and thicken the sauce gently, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but curdle if the sauce boils, so the sauce must stay below boiling once the yolks go in.

Swap the beans

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

Almondfits better
Pistachiofits better
Chickpeafits better
Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, parsley. 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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French Beans, a LA Pouhite