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Salad

French Bean Salad

A salad of boiled French beans dressed with oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, tarragon and chives.

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. Nip off the ends of the French beans and remove the fiber.

  2. Boil the beans in plenty of slightly salted water in a non‑tinned vessel, uncovered, to preserve their color.

  3. Drain the beans and dry them on a cloth until completely cold.

Dress and serve

  1. Place the beans in a bowl and drizzle with salad oil.

  2. Dust with black pepper and salt, then add a few drops of red wine vinegar.

  3. Sprinkle with minced tarragon and chives before serving.

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 carry its crisp, fresh texture.
Salad oil
Coats the beans, adding moisture and a smooth mouthfeel to the salad.
Red wine vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the flavor of the beans and oil.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the beans until completely cold. Beans that are still warm or wet will dilute the oil and dressing and can turn limp, so letting them cool and dry lets the oil coat them evenly and keeps the texture crisp.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, red wine, vinegar, tarragon, chive):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Lentilsfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chickpeafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, red wine, vinegar, tarragon, 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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